 Okay, I will call the meeting to order at 6.34 p.m. I'll review the logistics. Anyone joining us remotely please change your name display to your full first and last name. And when you're called upon to speak, please state your name and where you live. Anyone who wishes to be recognized, please use the electronic raise hand feature on on the zoom function so we so we catch you and get to hear from you. If you're speaking about the specific agenda item or for that matter. Anytime you're addressing the council we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes and counselor bait will help us keep track of the time. And I think we're ready to go. First item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Any. Yeah, I felt when we get to the. Yeah, one thing I was going to suggest is item 15 on the agenda which is to approve the contract for printing of the annual report. I would suggest we just move that to the consent agenda unless there's objection to that. Okay, we'll consider that done. Any other changes. Tim take the home fire memorandum of understanding off the consent agenda just so we could hear a bit more about that. Sure. And Carrie, did you want to. Mention your item about the housing committee. I'd like to request the housing. Okay, sounds good. And with that the agenda is approved. Next item on the agenda is general business and appearances this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic which is not on tonight's agenda. I'll ask you to limit your comments to 3 minutes and we'll take people in the room and also online most starting with people in the rooms or anyone would like to be heard. John snow. Very much mayor. John snow live in Montpelier. I wanted to update you on what's happened with the farmers market over the past year. Good news and bad news. And it's probably the only thing that's not related to taxes tonight. So I appreciate that. I started off last summer session, really, really well at 133 State Street, and then of course the flood yet we were at 133 for 10 days, 10 Saturdays, and boom, it was over. I made one call to Vermont College. Katie Guffson said of course you can come up here. And I was just really moved to tears actually we spent the next. We thought it was just going to be a couple weeks spent the next 16 weeks up at the college. Very successfully. They were so welcoming and helpful in all regards. We couldn't count people coming in when we were up at the college but while we were at 133. We had in those 10 weeks we had almost 20,000 visitors come through the highest day was 2700. I mean it's just record breaking for us. We are in great shape in terms of the number of vendors that we have. There's a line of people who want to get into the market and you know we'll get them in as soon as we can. But right now we're at 88 approved vendors. And on average we have 50 vendors that every week. The big news as far as I'm concerned is that we brought in over a million dollars worth of income to those farmers and vendors. Over the course of the summer session. Right here in the high school and high school is fabulous was letting us in again for the Thanksgiving market. 67,797 dollars. It's a record breaking market for us as well. And I think anyone who attended will know that there was a lot of great produce there. I wanted to point out that when we were at 133 we conducted some polls and most of the people who come there also shop elsewhere when they're downtown. So I think that's pretty impressive. In fact, when we had our annual meeting, month or so ago, the vendors voted almost unanimously to return to 133 next spring. So we will be back there. I'm thrilled. I love the green and there was a lot of advantages to being up there, especially for families with kids for old people who hobbled around on the grass, not so much. But for the farmers, it's a lot harder to load out and load in up there at the college than it is at 133. So we'll be back if if all goes well, and bgs is been very cooperative with us. Thanks to anyway, they've been very cooperative with us. And if we can get back in there. We will be there in early May. Any questions. Yeah, I know that there's a, there's a system or structure in place for people to be able to use food stamps or three squares. Is there any way to break down how much comes from those people or how many people are benefiting from that. I can get that information for you. We were, it made a big difference this year, especially with NOFA's program of adding in additional revenue through their coupon program. Unfortunately, that all ran out of money right at the start of the winter market. But we noticed a big bump from those NOFA coupons in particular. But I can get that information to you. Thanks. Made a difference. Anything else. Well, thank you. We will be at Bar Hill. I guess I skipped over that every the second and fourth Saturdays of the month with the winter market we have again almost 50 vendors inside and outside there. We'd love to see you at any anyway. Thank you. Thanks John. Anyone else. Mr. Whitaker. I don't want to argue for equal time because I didn't come prepared. But I would do want to make note of it. So, I've talked to a lot of folks who are Steve Whitaker, my failure. Who are distressed at our parking enforcement is getting away ahead of our plow. It's like we move cars back and forth and back and forth, but the city doesn't plow. The snow from the prior storm wasn't cleaned up before last Monday's storm and it's blocking access to businesses that rely on people to be able to walk in from the street. So you can't get to your meters to park. You can't traverse. And we can say we're short staffed and we can say, you know, but are we going to, how long are we going to milk that flood before we start doing due diligence on keeping up with our maintenance. The transit center had been unofficially kicking people out after 20 minutes. They have officially in writing receded that policy and denied that it existed. Yet staff had admitted it existed. And they're not going to be kicking people out in 20 minutes. I heard from Clayton that they're trying to staff up and be able to keep the bathrooms open all to the contract. But I want to ask the council, why no one has insisted that the city enforce the lease terms and get those bathrooms open sooner than the next March. You know, it's not okay to just sign a lease and give them a lease for a dollar and then leave those bathrooms closed for two and a half hours every day, because we're too lazy to enforce the lease or we don't care for the unbathroomed people. It's it's not, it's not right. And these are basic human needs dignity and public safety that we're dealing with. Snow restrooms. How come you've taken no action on there being no shower at the shelter. It's, it's absurd. And it's going to have to get addressed at the state level. You know, even if it rescinds a grant, but you somebody needs to put a shower in a shelter you can't run a shelter without a tower, you know, and just think about that from your, your own conscience. And it's just. So, is it the city's responsibility to get the doors working and to enforce the height, the snow removal around the transit center. You know, the doors, automatic doors have been hanging the wires have been hanging there at the handicamped ramp off of Taylor for what three four years now, the wires are still hanging out and the pedals aren't going to open those doors. The motors are there the openers are there. The city owns the building whose job is it to get those working. And whose job is it to get the snow off the handicapped around the city. Green Mountain is not maintaining the stairways or the getting the snow off the stairways or the parking lot. So, these are real issues. I know our manager doesn't think so but I'm hoping y'all will. This is the first I heard about the door openers and I know that the manager will be taking that up with with staff. Well, please ask that he take up all of those things. Thank you. Thanks. Anybody else in the room who would like to be heard and anyone online. I'm not seeing anybody. So we can move to the next item on the agenda, which is the consent agenda, which has removed item e and added item 15. Oh, oh, sorry. Yep. Item F is in their emotion. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Okay, thank you. Want to take up home farmway right now. Just. It's just a topic that's come up and off and on, and I'm curious about some of the detail. I know resolving the ownership has been a key concern there. And. I think it was before when I brought it up about would there be a potential development site for some other use. If the building were taken down and it sounds like with flood issues. But anyway, that was what I was asking to clarify. Right, so I'm trying to put as many of the details as possible and memo knowing that some people know more about this. So, preservation for. Historic trust. Preservation trust of Vermont. The HCB is working with state and others to resolve the land ownership issues and take down the house. Pay off the mortgage and convert that land into active floodplain. It would expand if it is already some of it is floodway some of its floodplain, they would expand the floodplain so that to be a project to redesign that area to take on more water. Benefits downtown and further downstream. And so, because of that, we really couldn't put another building in it plus the conservation easements are on site would preclude that they could be a parking area. It has to remain in public use so we're looking at what those possibilities it could be it could be a community farm it could be the feast farm, you know, like it was it could be, you know, potentially a dog park depending on if, if we had to look at the structures, I don't know fencing the problem with floodplain or not so you know there are some public benefits can have our role in this you know we don't own this property we've never owned this property and the conflict around it is not the city's making so we've attempted to be somewhat hands off with the exception of enforcing the public nuisance at the house itself. But we have said consistently over the years that we would accept the property. Once it was all free and clear as you know sort of open space public use and so what what's on the agenda tonight is you know there's a form of good faith understanding amongst all the parties with a path to move forward and it's simply saying everyone's agreeing that they will work toward getting this done and and sort of do their part and our part is is accepting the property that's really about it. I think we actually met last week and you know they want to be the mo you signed in as well as is probably something city council should see before before I put my name on it so there it is but then I also realize we have some new folks who might not know all the history so hence the very long write up, but that's answer any more questions that's the short wasn't a shorter actually but that's the answer to the question, given that it's been in in this council on for years. Pretty, pretty good. Any other questions or comments. All right, so I'm gonna. You regarding the future five farm way property. Moved and seconded any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed. All right. I have a whole bunch of appointments and I suggest that we see if there are any applicants for any of these positions and take them all up at once and then I would entertain a motion to go into executive session. So for the design review committee we have applicants William Russell and Rebecca Owens. Okay, Mr Russell. I want to step up and just say hello. Sure, thanks for the opportunity to speak I'm actually excited to apply to do this again I have lived here in the early 2000s was on the committee and it was really very, very happy to have a small way to give back to the to the city and in an area that I worked and moved away. In 2004 to go into grad school for architecture and have finally made it back here with my kids, you know, love the city just want to do my little part in an area of my expertise to, you know, just to help out and preserve the Montpelier the spirit of Montpelier that we that we know. Questions. Okay, thanks a lot. Thanks for coming out. Rebecca Owens. I don't think I see either here or in the zoom for the complete streets committee we have Indy Roberts Matthew Thier Nancy Schultz and John Kim. Anybody here or online or the Montpelier Energy Committee. And Dan Jones, not seeing Dan. And homelessness task force Sophie Lewis. Okay Sophie, if you could unmute yourself. Just a second to figure that out. Hi everyone, I'm Sophie Lewis. Most of my career has been working with people who use drugs and people who are coming out of carceral settings so there's a lot of intersection with people who are experiencing homelessness so I'm really excited to be part of that in in Montpelier so thank you. Thanks. Thanks for volunteering to do this. Social and economic justice advisory committee we have Jim Higgins and Joshua Hayford and not seeing either of you on on the line. Thank you for your participation. Commission we have Eric Gilbertson and Bob McCullough. Not seeing either of them here either. Okay, we have at least one committee in which there's more candidates than than opening so. I suggest a motion to go into executive session would be appropriate. I want the whole quote. Sure, I do the whole thing. Move that we enter executive session to discuss the appointments on these committees pursuant to one BSA 313 a. Right. Seconded. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Okay. Now is there a motion. Yes, and move that we appoint the design new committee William Russell for the regular seat. Rebecca Owens for the alternate. That we table the complete streets committee decision. Until the next meeting to clarify the applicant status. Because there was a question about it. That we appoint Dan Jones to the three year term of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. That we appoint Sophie Lewis to the committee. And that we appoint the design new committee William Russell for the regular seat. Rebecca Owens for the alternate. That we table the complete streets committee decision until the next meeting to clarify the applicant status. Because there was a question about it. That we appoint Sophie Lewis to the homelessness task force. That we appoint Jim Higgins and Joshua Hafer to the social and economic justice advisory council. That we appoint Eric Gilbertson and Robert McCullough to the historic preservation. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Okay, I'll point out for any might wonder that Robert McCullough is no relation to me. Although I can affirm that we had over many years we had communicate mail our kids we got stuff about their kids from schools. They got I'm sure they got stuff about our kids but no relation. Thank you to everybody who has volunteered to take on these jobs. The city really couldn't go without without all the great volunteer work that people devote to our community. All right, next up we have our meeting with our legislators. We should time them. They would welcome it. It's like the old days. It's an open meeting, Connor. You can say as late as you are. It's watching the back. We're the real action. Okay, welcome. We have Senators Cummings or mayors Cummings and Perchlich and representative. And we'd like to do this every year to touch base with our legislative delegation to talk about what our priorities are and get their insights on what to expect in the coming session. We've got some stuff that's very important to the city government and city council. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me on it. Sure. I just have first of all, you can get noticed in advance from Senator Watson, she would be unable to attend. Mayor and I do have a follow-up meeting scheduled with her. Next week, I think. So follow up on it just so people know. Representative McHann is safe. Center best. Okay. Appreciate that. I was actually at a session with her in the fall and she got an earful from me. And I was like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know about her personal. So we did send out our legislative agenda. Hopefully you all have that as, you know, it's tweaked every year. I think. All of it is important and we can go through it. I think the biggest thing from the city, obviously it's totally from recovery and particularly funding. I know you've heard this from the city of Barry as well. Housing initiatives, how we can support housing initiatives and moving them. We've stepped into it. Purchasing a property and we're working with the state and. They're interested, but you know, you've got to go through this process and that process. And it seems if there's something ready to go, particularly the municipality that owns property, that can move things that there should be a way. Hear that up. And then, you know, two points we heard earlier, support for the unhoused. Everyone's cobbling it together in the city and, and all these other things that it does feel like the state. You know, has probably had good intentions, but doesn't seem to really be getting it, but I'm had reading it to others. So those were, I think, but the council identifies top three areas of legislative policy. And then obviously some specific things in each one. Some, as I said, were things you've seen before and others. So I would leave that to other council members to amplify. And I've said it on their behalf. Sure. Yeah, thanks. And I think, yeah, Bill gave a good summary just underscoring any, I don't know if you're going to take around for the fun of the budget overview. Really, really challenging. The revenue loss, let's increase costs coming out of the pandemic that already, you know, we were playing catch up on infrastructure needs and all of that. So just, you know, I think we're going to, you know, we're going to, you know, we're going to be looking to whatever extent we can be looking for ways to, you know, address the things in here. If there's, you know, program funding that can help support us. I mean, you'll see in here, there's a number of things that we've funded in recent years, like micro transit or peer outreach workers and social workers and things that are critical needs that have gotten pushed onto communities like ours. And that, you know, we're going to be looking for ways to address the issues that we're going to be looking for. And I know you know this, but you know, to whatever extent the state can be helping, you know, the hard hit communities like us. And so we don't have to backslide and, you know, provide worse and fewer services to people who need it more than ever right now. So that's just my, my pleading to you all. And I know you're hearing it all over. Thanks. Directly named in the agenda and directly about the floods. And I know that the dam removal is being identified by the state and many reports, how important it is to reduce flooding. And yet there's been no money put forth to do this. And we all know it's not just the dam, but it's all the pollutant behind the dam. And so I really want to put that on your radar heavy dam removal would really, really help. You're many, many other cities. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for coming. Thank you for reading this. And I'm sure you'll get everything on this list. Take a pair of four town meeting day. So I'm not too worried about it, but, but I, but I just want to emphasize going through the, the reappraisal that we had this year and then going through the appeals process, we're still doing that all fall. And now we have the abatements coming up because of the flood. And so we have, we're going to see a pretty significant impact on that. And so we're going to have to, we're going to have to go back to the budget because of that loss of property taxes that we were counting on that were built into the grand list. But then the abatements that are coming up. And so we have very strict requirements for when property taxes can be abated. And a lot of people are going to meet them this time around. And we have to say yes. And it's not just the city property taxes that are abated. And so that's the part where I really hope that you all will think about this is a state expense that Montpelier is having to absorb. And we, we actually don't have the ability to absorb that adequately. And we're not the only community in the situation I know, but that's, so that's my particular. And that's. So isolation. I have a bill in the Senate, which would do the same abatement. You wouldn't have to pay it that we did after Irene, my counterpart in the house representative cornheiser has the same bill in its. I don't know anyone that objects to it. So our plan is to get that out in the first week. I mean, as quickly as we can get it through. It's on my agenda for the first week. And we'll see if we can get that at that much out. That's great. That's tremendous. That'll be a tremendous relief for, for us. And if we can get that. Before we finalize our budget, of course, that'll be. A big help for us. I think that's great. Thanks. So I'll link every thoughts on the. Board of civil authority and our activities. Which I'm sure you would remember. And when you're in the city council, it was a big surprise to me to find out that when you're in the council, you're an automatic member. Or the civil. That here we got. So one thing we learned this last week actually, or so in our meetings. That we had a good discussion the other night on is. When properties are assessed for these. It's a different formula. It's specified in the state act is at 75 or 78. So those properties aren't looked at in the same manner that everything else we look at it. They're looked at in basically an accounting formula. They're specified in this law. And the bottom line that we're experiencing with it is. That. It's resulting in exceedingly low numbers. I think the state might take is probably pays more in pilot than the state. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point for their properties than these. These are paying. For these apartment buildings. Which creating affordable housing is important. And it's a key goal. And we want to stay on that track. But I think the take of the committee after listening to this discussion and going through it last week is. But it's gone to the point where it appears to be an unfunded mandate. Virtually. And it's worth looking at. So as you're looking at your tax formulas. I've heard of that one. Probably went through a housing committee, but I've actually got a meeting with the tax commissioner next week and I'll do some talking because I know we want to keep it affordable and don't want, you know, it'd be taxed at full market. But you do have to provide services to those. Those residents and that costs money. I think that was part of act 68. Actually that. When we did that reform way back in 2003 or something. Okay. Send you the chart. Because it comes down to like, just for one entity of nonprofit housing. With all the properties that entity owns was $1.5 million different. Between what they should have been taxed and what the government mistake law said we had to. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. I was very surprised because, you know, I've been on the board of civil authority for probably 20 plus years at this point. And maybe we've not. I don't remember this ever coming up. And so I think this merits some discussion. Yeah. Consistent with what our policies are. Yeah, I don't think the counts have ever been under the kind of pressure they're under right now. Yeah. Yeah. We need to do everything we can to help. And in Montpelier, of course, we want to continue to develop affordable housing. And so. It seems like this could be a disincentive to developing affordable housing. So. Yeah. But you know, we need to. I don't understand it fully myself at this point, but. It's a question. So you've been hearing from us a lot. What are you guys thinking about the session? I'm happy to win. That's the first. First, I want to like thank the senators. I know Senator Perth like Cummings Watson are taking the lead on some of the abatement issues. We've heard a lot about the 18 units in Montpelier. That are. Stand to be demolished if we're unable to raise them. So as we talk about creating more housing at the state, it's preposterous that we would tear down units in town, leaving some of our own people displaced when we could spend $2 million to raise them. And I think that's got to be a central Vermont approach. I'll be honest, like I very much felt the lack of state presence in the two weeks. Following the flood there. And so all of you out there too. We were in the base fence like slinging out furniture. You know, we were at the tent with Montpelier alive in the city, going door to door talk at the people. I didn't feel the state presence so much. The $20 million in the BGAP program is was very necessary. It was incredible to get people back on their feet. But we have $300 million of economic injury for businesses in central Vermont. So it barely covers Montpelier, right? So I think we got to go into the session. Collectively all of us swinging and not waiting for the governor's budget to come out before we are very explicit on what we need. And we need more business funding. We need to make our municipalities whole after suffering that through abatements. You know, obviously like a direct like appropriation. But we also need to like be able to tell people in Montpelier that like help us on the way, right? It's like some of the business owners I've spoken to. Why would I open up again? I wouldn't hurt anything from the state that you're doing something about flood mitigation, right? What are you doing as far as a hydraulic study of the basin? What are you doing about like, you know, looking at buffers, looking at planes and everything. So I think we need a full court press here. It goes on and on, right? It's, you know, businesses who lost a lot of employees with these absurd work search requirements that they had to continue searching for other jobs, right? When they had an open date, like the next week. So represent McCann and I will definitely be like asking for your feedback in the next couple of weeks. We'll have an omnibus flood bill there. But definitely ask all of you, you know, this is more committees than all of us can cover, right? So I think we need people in committees. And we need to be very loud telling the administration that this is unacceptable. And this is not a city issue. But that's what disaster is regional. So we need you to be like, be involved and tell us, help is on the way. And I haven't heard at this point. So I think we need to be very aggressive this session. Yes, thank you. Do we think that there's a, any possibility of getting something into the budget adjustment act or we think in an entire separate piece of legislation. I always hope there's a possibility for sure. And I totally agree with the case that we need to be aggressive on this. And I, something that Washington County doesn't have that some other counties have is like real County caucus where the County meets on a regular basis and advocates as a County for things. I mean, the outer towns really rely on very mobiliar. And I think they would, would be supportive, but we need to kind of have that organization and, and really be aggressive on it. Cause what's going to happen is the governor's budget. And the CAA is going to be, we don't have any, in fact, we're already two and a half million in the whole. So don't come asking for it. I think that's going to be their goal. So if more, we can get ahead of that and say, well, these are essential services that the state needs to be providing. It would be the hooves to do that. Yeah. I think I can follow up on that just quickly about funding. You know, I agree that the 20 million that went businesses was great. People absolutely needed it, but you look at that amount of money in the context of the losses, but also in context of the state funding. And I think about that if, if a comparable amount of money was allocated to the municipalities, you know, us, Barry, Ludlow, Johnson, you know, the folks that really got hit the hardest, you know, don't make a huge difference for us. I mean, it really would keep us able to continue functioning. Like I said, if you stay in here, what we're presenting, it's going to, it's scorched earth. And, you know, it would make a giant difference. And just in, you know, we're obviously got businesses close. We've got the abatements. We've got the appraisal changes. We've, you know, our local options taxes and parking just went away for all those times and still not back, the restaurants were open. The hotel is not open, you know, the meals, alcohol taxes are gone. So we hit the property taxes. So all those kinds of revenue sources through no fault of cities, anybody else? Of course it's, I mean, it was a natural disaster, but that's where you count on the backstop to come in. And, you know, the businesses aren't getting famous since at least the city gets that far to rebuild our things. But yeah, I think this is one of those times where, you know, it's like it was 10 years ago when the state has to say, we've got to do something for our residents and businesses. I mean, obviously we're looking at Montpelier, but I look at our partners in Bay Area and they're hurting. And, you know, I've talked to Johnson and Muglow and others, and they're, you know, they're all, everyone's just throwing their hands up. They don't know what to do. Working together all those times is going to be important. I got to say, I think Barry and Montpelier, we're fighting for our existence this session, right? Another flood hits like this. Nobody's opening up back downtown, right? We'll still have a Montpelier, but it's going to be neighborhoods like above terrace, right? That type of. So this is it. Okay. I'm going to play my usual role as anti-depit Nick, because I chair money committee and it all comes down to money. I've been working all summer trying to find, we had a number of 10 million to help raise houses. I got the evil eye from the chair of appropriations. We've been trying to find something that might be left over from ARPA, but our revenues are. Not flat, but not, they aren't what they've been. The federal money is gone. We've inherited the motels from that. And so the only, we're either going to have to cut a state service somewhere, or we're going to have to raise some money. And nobody in here has mentioned the December 1st letter, about the 18% projected rise in property taxes. I assume that would also cause some issues here. I thought housing was going to be my first agenda, but since December 1st, I think the property tax issue was going to be number one. Flood recovery is the number one in the legislature, followed by housing, but those were all set before December 1st. So we're going to be working on that. And we're going to try and find the money we can. I don't think we could get a tax increase through. It's just everybody's hurting to increase their taxes would. Hurt more. So there's a proposal for a surcharge, but a permanent one. That might be possible for a short-term flood recovery. I've got a bill in to allow the treasurer to do flood relief bonds, which we did after 28. I have a couple old copies of them, but those would be things that people could buy. They'd be voluntary, not a mandatory tax. That's in there. I've also got a bill in to ask the department of public safety to look at. In the first place, in the first place, we had our preparedness, not flood mitigation, but there was no shelter in the city of Montpelier and all the roads to Barry were closed. So there was essentially no place for people to go during the flood. This is my second flood in Montpelier. The first one, we had two shelters. We had no plans for the kids this time. The kids were told to go a national life. notifications. If you live on the coast, you get a robo call if there's a storm coming and you get instructions for where you to go and how you to get there. And there are evacuation routes marked. We don't have any of that people left, but they were kind of on their own where they went. And we're lucky we didn't lose someone when you hear some of the stories of people with torrents coming out of the hills. So we've got that. We are working on flood plain and mitigation, but you don't do that overnight. And the legislature hasn't been in session. The reason we got 20 million dollars for businesses is because we took it from broadband. That was money that was there for them to go to, I believe, a federal auction. We have to put that back in January. So that's 20 million that's got to go back there. And it's going to be hard. The state's got over 100 million dollars in damage and not having those state workers is in helping downtown merchants. I'm hoping we'll get back. But right now I think the state house is the only place that's active. And that's a big loss. I heard today that the pavilion is supposed to be opening up pretty soon. Okay, good. I don't know when, but I heard that from a state employee that I work with a lot. I mean, obviously the loss of state employees was pretty flood. That's the issue we've been talking about already. I appreciate what you said and understand that completely everyone's dealing with that. And I'm going to state the obvious and I'm not advocating. I don't know what there is to do. But when the legislature or the governor, they won't have no appetite for a tax increase, it just means they're making the local amenities across the entire state raise taxes. So there will be a tax increase. It just won't be a state tax increase. And all the services will get pushed onto locals. And we'll have to raise our property. We're just to give you an example. We're talking about a budget after we leave that raises taxes 3% to match inflation that is basically cutting everything that's in. And that's to make up for all this other stuff. So if we want to do more, then we're going to have to raise taxes even more than that. And I don't think there's any great desire around this table anymore than there's around Europe. But I struggle with this year after year after year when the state's like, we're not going to raise taxes and we just let someone else do it for them. I know it's not you three particular, but give you some words to bring back to your colleagues. Great. Great comments, Bill. I think, you know, we hear that year after year, whether it's a good year or a bad year, the word is, well, this isn't the year to raise taxes. Well, I don't think we're going to meet the need by selling for monstron license plates. I think that doesn't touch the scope of the problem. There we are. Anybody go out there and kick ass when you're up there. No, we can show up and testify. Yeah, I think that what started out before floods and before the December 1st letter and is on the top of the agenda this year is how is it? The bottom line is you have fewer people than when I was mayor, only a couple hundred, but you could have a couple thousand more. And the cost is the city to provide services to that would be minimal. It would be the same with state government, but you'd have a larger tax base. But until we solve the housing problem, we can't get teachers, nurses, we're spending $200 million additional on traveling nurses. And that's being reflected in all your healthcare bills. $6 million just for the vet. Also the veteran, yeah. Just $6 million extra dollars for traveling nurses. Thank you for coming here tonight. Even if the city tried to increase the house number and create affordable housing, it will take time. We are talking about need six, 10 years. So are they any state plans to help cities like us until we create our own support for housing? So because if we decided tonight and start building houses, it will take time. Thank you. Arpa funds into affordable housing. And we're building it as quickly as we can. It costs a lot more than it did a few years ago to build it. But it takes time. But we need also middle class housing. I mean, we need housing that average working people. I remember when I first was in city government or first in the legislature, but we were talking about worker housing and Jesse Ventura, who was the governor of Wisconsin, had this whole model program for worker housing that they were pushing. And we're still there. This has been being talked about the need for just anything but, you know, high end housing has the money. They will get housing, but anything below probably $500,000 we can't do. So I think to that point, I mean, this kind of goes to where I know many of we in my pillar of taking a big step, but I talked to my colleagues around the state and it's like, how can locals intervene in the market to help create this? Because, you know, you've got all this money, but I'm not sure who's getting it or how they're getting it. And when you have a community, and I'll use us, but I'm sure as you know what, who's purchased a piece of property, there should be some way where the state can say, yeah, we're going to help fund the infrastructure that it needs. You know, we're going to make a direct cost to this. We've tried TIF. We haven't gotten very far with that project based TIF. I know that died last year. And but any of these other programs that could work to say, yes, we want housing, we can put 400 units of housing in the next couple of years if we had state investing, we could find the partners, the private partners to do that if they didn't have to put that up that kind of money. And, you know, that in the scale of things, you know, but instead we're just, we have to find the partner, they've got to go through VHCP applications, they've got to go through, you know, all the different programs and wait on the wait lists and all those things. And that's great. But in the meantime, you know, other than Chittenden County, where's the housing being built? And so how do we direct it? How do we correct the markets in, you know, our area, Wyndham County, Rutland County, all the places that need housing and need housing that's moderate? How do you all jumpstart that? And so I think investing the money was, you know, former fire chief used to say half a good idea. You know, you put the money, but then how do you, how do you finish the job and get it to people that can actually make a difference? So. And that's something I think we're struggling with. We've been focusing on affordable, meaning perpetually subsidized housing. But how do you get housing out there and the costs are a lot higher than they used to be? And the interest rates are a lot higher. You know, several times I've heard it's impossible to build a house that the average person can afford in this state, which is somewhere between $2 and $2.50 and it costs $3. So, but I think with the, it costs more than $3. Outside of it. But yeah, I mean, it's, and I think the reason, the many tips, I think we're not, that's just not the best way to fund infrastructure. You know, it might be a better, because it comes out of the end fund. And that doesn't help. How much is the end fund getting from right now, from country club room? Probably nothing. Nothing. No, because it's 400 units, the beginning 25% of all those. But it's adding to the end fund. But it's not just Montpelier. It's the town that wants to put in a septic system. Yeah. The problem, I just don't know. The narrative that it's coming from the end fund. I am a big supporter of TIFs. I did the original statewide TIF law, because I think you do get a lot more back, but you, it's a hard slosh. And I just, to get that through. And this year with the end fund projections, it's going to be harder. I appreciate everything you're doing. I don't take any of this as being hostility. Just take this as being exactly, this city council is really working hard and facing a hard challenge this year to meet the very basic needs of our community. And we need help from outside of our community. We need help from state government. We're the seat of government for the state. We need help to do everything we need to do. So, and we also need a post office. I know that you don't, you don't control that. But you keep the communication going. It's helpful when we do get, you know, communications from the city manager. Like, hey, this thing is, you know, extra important or, you know, reminding us that's helpful to let the delegation know and. But also keep the pressure on the governor's office. Right. Because if we have to do what needs to be done with the funds we have available, there's going to be a lot of pain somewhere else. And I don't think anyone wants that either. So, yeah, I know there's a bill in for revenue sharing. I know the league is interested in that. We just have to find a way to fund it. So, so was that? Yeah. The advantage we have is all our colleagues are coming to town pretty soon. So we got to get loud, light a bit of a fire going into this, right? And we could do it. So do let us know also when we can be in the building. Things that's on our budget is money for lobbyists. I remember when the mayor and the city manager went up every Tuesday morning for breakfast at the state house at 7.30. I'm not a morning person. It did. I mean, it was a full court press because we were getting I think $30,000 from the state and it was a full court press to get more money for the city. I would say this because we meet up on the state a lot. We're going to talk about the budget. So I will say this that those breakfasts all that time ago, we now get over a million dollars a year in pilot and we're essentially 100% municipal property tax. Now, if you accept the state's valuations, they get to set the wrong value. So there's that. But I mean, you know, a lot of times it's like, well, the state doesn't pay their property taxes and now they pretty much paid them fully. And so it started with your breakfast. So thank you. Yeah, there it is. Yeah, about 10. Okay. Anything else from either side of the table? And thank you. That is how we can help. And again, make your voice clear to the governor's office. We need his support too. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming. Thanks for everything you do for us. All right, we are, yeah, speaking of money, we have our friends from the Vermont VLCT federal funding briefing. Wow, that's a tough one to follow. So it's for sure that conversation. So thank you for having us tonight. I'm Katie Buckley. I'm the director of the federal funding assistance program for Vermont League of Cities and Towns and I'm joined by Bonnie Woninger, who is our federal funding assistance specialist. And we work with towns. I'll tell you a little bit about what we do, how we've worked with some city staff already and how we can work with you on the horizon. We are funded through a grant from the state of Vermont. And we work with town cities and villages all over the state, not just with their ARPA funding that they received, but to help them access all of the federal funds that are coming through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. And so we've really tried to be out in front on learning what the programs are. There are over 500 programs available through the bipartisan infrastructure law, I think 130 through the Inflation Reduction Act and really trying to tease out through there which ones are available to local governments and more specifically which ones are available to and most accessible to Vermont local governments. And there are a lot of programs. And most of the money that towns would access are coming through the state of Vermont. They're in addition to some of those existing programs that exist. But with inflation, more money means not as much work will get done. So it might be advancing the existing pipeline rather than cutting the existing pipeline. If you have 30% more funding, but it costs 30% more, you're absolutely neutral. So we have, Bill sent us a copy of the strategic plan. You have great goals in there. It was really exciting to read it. And we would love to be able to better understand what your priorities are in terms of the projects that you want to accomplish. And when you have specific projects that you want to carry out, we can match those projects up with funds. So we've already started. We've met with staff, I think. In January, we met with staff and matched up some of the projects in the, I want to say in the capital program, perhaps, and took a look at some of the others that you have on the horizon. And would love to continue to work with you, especially given your budget constraints, as you just talked about, to try and match up additional grant funding or incentives for what you want to advance within the construct fines of your budget. Thank you. Well, I think you heard our number one priority really is flood recovery and rebuilding. And so I'm sure you've heard that from other communities also. Can you give us any hope there? Yes. Yes. Good answer. You may already know, I know, city staff does, but each time there's federally declared disaster, which this was, the state receives 15% of the value of that disaster, in addition to all the public assistance for hazard mitigation projects. So coming up, starting in probably March or April, I think, the state will be running grant programs. And to give you a sense of scale for the money that was received for Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, the state's closing out the final grants. So you could come in for a half million or a million dollar project and be able to get that money in this scale of disaster. So for towns and cities to really think about what is it we need to do to be flood resilience? This is a great time to access those programs. So that's maybe not the infrastructure bill, but from a flood recovery. Those are going to be public works projects, things like that. It's not necessarily housing, unless you are housing and businesses, unless you're doing something with that business like elevations or flood protection buildings. Well, and we are living in elevations for at least some of the housing. Yeah. Is that something that would be eligible? That is eligible through that. I encourage you to talk to Waterbury and get a sense of what it was like for them when they had residents interested in raising houses. It's not for the faint of heart. FEMA looks at a lot of different things when they look at raising a home. A homeowner is usually interested in having it happen now. And with most grants, grants are great. They don't happen now. You put in your application and a year to four years later, the money comes. And oftentimes the homeowners have already done some improvements or by that point the flood has disappeared a little bit from their memory or the immediate impact. So it takes a while. There's a lot of documentation that both the city and the homeowner would provide. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying going with a realistic by talking to Waterbury about their experiences. I think they started with 12 homes and one to two made it through the process. But for those one or two, it helped tremendously. And the same is true. I think Jeffersonville had a home go through the program. And that one was a historic home. And that homeowner said this is the first time we only had inches of water. They should have had feet of water in their home. So those folks from a resident perspective, in addition to the city talking to Waterbury, maybe you want a resident to resident conversation about what it was like so that your residents are prepared. So yeah, I do. We have some homeowners who actually are in the area where houses were declared that they have to either totally meet FEMA's requirements or be demolished. And one is historic. So it doesn't it's not threatened by being demolished. So that owner is going ahead and putting improvements in. But that house needs to be raised. Is something like that possible? It is possible. Yes. The home that I'm thinking of specifically in Jeffersonville was a historic home. I understand because a historic homeowner is not threatened with being demolished. Now the other homeowners are being threatened with being demolished. Do you know? I mean, that's the time like the timeline of what they have to do before that they're forced to demolish their home and that grant comes in. Is there so that's the FEMA money? The state also through I think it was ARPA funds, the flood resilience community, the state put some money into a program. So what I do what I encourage you to do is there's an address you can use. It's on the state website and you put in your project and they help. They do the work to figure out based on what you're telling them which grant program is best for you. So some of these that wouldn't qualify for FEMA or FEMA wouldn't move fast enough. Been moving to the state program, but they're trying to use those state dollars most effectively for people who don't fit the FEMA programs well. Okay, give me your new email. I have a regional planning commission. Right. Can I ask another question? Dams, but Dams qualify, dam removals. You have to show so for the FEMA, you have to show you have to go through what's called a benefit cost analysis for every dollar you're going to get from FEMA. You have to show a dollar's worth of incurred damages or avoided damages. So if you could prove the dam caused some of these damages, then you might be able to count that and pass. Yeah, but do estimate that. Now, some of them are two, three, maybe even older. So that's, but I will definitely be in contact. Okay. And the nice part of those cost, but nice part of the benefit cost analysis is that you get to project what's the life of the improvement you're doing. So you can if a dam removal is different, but let's say you were constructing something. If that the life of that asset is 30 years, you can project how much damage would I have over 30 years based on the reoccurrence. And that helps those cost benefits numbers go up. So both the state will help you with that. And regional planning commissions are often familiar with running the cost-benefit model and private consultants as well. That sounds like I've heard this from other places too that with regard to the demolition versus elevation question that they seem to have a real bias towards demolition, regardless of the fact that it's much more cost effective to spend less to preserve the house than to demolish the house and then spend three times as much to preserve new housing. I can't speak for FEMA. I can only speak for my experience. FEMA is looking at damages averted, not long-term economic having housing for people. The formulas through the Stafford app, things like that are based on trying to avert damages. So if you think of that from a house perspective, having the house gone, you'll incur fewer damages than even having a house elevated, that foundation, that raised part, gets wet. And you still have people unable to get to their homes. So not defending FEMA, but that's the perspective they can come in with based on their legislation. Getting on this side of it with Lauren. Thanks. I guess just thinking about the conversation we're going to have in a couple minutes of contemplating major cuts across numerous, pretty much every program, what would be really helpful? And maybe it's a kind of timely request. If you met almost a year ago with our staff, like really being able to look through and be like, what projects are we are on our to-do list or what is on the chopping block and where might there be grant funding available? And even if we're not going to get it this year, if we knew that there was the possibility and put it on hold with, let's seek that, let's explore that, it would just make the budgeting, I feel like, more strategic and thoughtful. And instead of just, let's trim a little here, let's trim a little here, let's trim a little here and cut back every service and program and then not have the capacity to go after grants, which is my other concern, is that we're scaling backstaffing, there's all this money out there and we are going to not have capacity to actually access it. It's a huge loss of opportunity. Do you feel like that? There is a lot of money out there. A lot of it is not available to the scale that we want. So Bonnie can talk more about where are those dollars being targeted across the country to disadvantaged communities. And our scale is pretty small. So a project from Montpelier might not compete on the scale that something from Dayton, Ohio might. And so we're trying to match up what is available and accessible to communities. And so do you have a sense based on your work of what are your, you have a siren and a red flag going, we have to do this project because it's putting the community at risk. I don't know if it's an infrastructure project or something like that that's on a timeline that you have to advance because it's breaking down. If you have projects, those would be your red zone projects. If you had yellow zone projects that were, you know what, they could wait. They are pretty important. And so if you have had your projects prioritized in that way to then line up funding with them, some of the funding, like the ARPA funding, has a time clock ticking on it. It needs to all be on the door by the end of 2026 and spent. So those projects that would use ARPA money, not your local ARPA money. I don't know what you have left, if any. But from the state, if you were to access those programs, that's going to have a faster timeline than say regular infrastructure money that came in through water wastewater programs through the state revival that has a little bit that will have a different timeline. So knowing what the projects are will help us match up. So do you have that level of facility? Yeah, the city does. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, and then there's like longer term things like our entire drinking water system has like a massive big investment we need to make in the next few years. And you know, is there money now that for a big project like that? I mean, I've seen some like community grant programs that that are also where you do partnerships and have the most funding. Yeah, so I do think there are big needs like that that do seem to match with where I totally hear you and I've gotten the same message. Like there's a bunch of proof, there's a bunch of money that is not going to come through. Yeah, and there's money that is excited about all this money. And then as we drill down into the programs, realize a little while, it's going to be very hard for for months going like months to access these programs. And like for some of your projects, can you phase it? You know, having that level of conversation, you have a whole water system that needs to be replaced. Are you able to phase that project? And if so, how can you chunk it up so that you can time it out with a point on and then match up funding? Yeah, you know, about 13 million in priority pipes. And we really have to fix now out of probably what's maybe roughly a $60 million project. One of the questions I had and you reminded me of Katie, when you just said that it's, you know, competing on a national scale for our projects, we know we're very uphill. But then there's some money that's come to the state. But my understanding and please correct me for months, a lot of that the state took in and has converted into revolving loan projects. So while it might have been grant money to them, it's not necessarily grant money to the local government. So, you know, we might be low interest and favorable terms, but it's not the same. It's just getting a couple of million dollars to help. Right. Yeah. So it's not all grand, right? So I think that's the other misnomer is a lot of money was invested, but it's not, we can borrow it. And you can borrow it, maybe more favorable terms, but it's not. So it's available to us. If we want to do the project, we still have to pay. Well, I'm going to be doing an analysis of, I mean, I know I've talked with a number of state officials, so they are going after grants and they're viewing it, you know, as you know, as like kind of doing it on behalf of communities, also like the climate mitigation program, for example, and there's potential funding, you know, we're cutting an EV charger from our budget, for example, where that's something that would be part of that grant, for example. Like, are you all going to be doing work to match up? Like, it feels like there's a disconnect. I know there's like a public comment period open right now, but I don't know that anyone in the city has been contacted to find out what our needs are directly. So is that work something that PLT is going to help with trying to draw those connections so that money actually flows because they're telling us, well, Hori, we're going to do it on your behalf and then, but we're not hearing anything or getting that connection. I'm going to have you answer. Okay, I'd like to click. So we are in contact with state folks. I'm going to use EV chargers since you brought that up. There was, as an example, there is a, there was a federal program applications closed in November, where if your EV charger was broken, let's say it was flood impacted or just broken, there was a grant program that you could go, you could compete nationally to fix that charger. Doesn't that sound great? And, but one Vermont community can't compete nationally. So the state three agencies work together and they put in an application for EV chargers. And the idea was we tried to drive communities, you had to be in a database that said my I have an EV charger, but it's broken. You had to be in the database. So as of a certain day, that database is frozen and the state could say, these are our folks, we're going to fix these. So in that case, aggregating at a state level definitely works. And then municipalities responsibility was to see the emails and the notices to try and get in that database. The fact that we're in the middle of a flood and a flood response, not all communities saw it, but the state is working. How much are they reaching out? I think like the climate fund, you guys may have seen that one where they're asking for public comment. That is your opportunity to weigh in. They're not knocking on individual doors. They are also strapped for staffing and they are trying to have as much visibility that the programs are open. But otherwise, they're assessing need based on what they know. And we're trying to listen for all of that on behalf of all the towns and villages in the state and being the eyes and ears for all of you so that when we hear those, we make sure we put those out in our bi-weekly emails to really say, hey, this is have your voice heard. And we try and amplify that and put that because sounds like a lot of emails. They from everywhere. And so we try and make sure that ours, that we can be a trusted source for towns. Every town is our member. So we try and make sure that we have the front of towns. And the state chasing those funds is the most powerful way for Vermont Towns to access those funds. And so we work with, we have connections with all the agencies. And so when there are opportunities, we try and make sure that we're right there with the state agency helping them decide, hey, if it has to get some granted to towns, let's talk and see the best way for that to happen and how we can get towns ready for money that might be coming, a federal allocation money or a competitive grant that the states chased. How can we get towns ready to then be able to do this for that funding should the state be able to do it. Thank you so much for this. And I think I want to get really clear about kind of next steps. It sounds like, you know, there's, there's money, there's some technical assistance, but then there's also the connection that has to be made and somebody in the city staff has to do some work to follow up on this and talk with you. And so I guess that's my question for Bill about kind of what happens next and what kind of support do you need to be able to make the most of this? I mean, I think we're in contact with them. I think it's, it's, you heard what Katie said. I mean, maybe we could spend some time, you know, in the near future prioritizing our projects. We know, you know, we're really going to go for something that it's, it's that one, you know, sometimes spending chasing money just because it's there isn't good. You know, we know water is the biggest one, and that one has really been revolving one or not green. So how do we find, you know, are there grants, waters? Are there grants for developing housing? I don't, I don't know if that's real. I mean, housing is a national priority, but I don't know if it's really in these bills. These are really infrastructure bills. You know, we've looked at funding for district heat and what that, you know, and again, flood recovery, there's a way we could help partner with private homeowners or businesses or something to get some of these funds. You know, the hazard mitigation grant program is a great program. I have some of you probably don't remember, but that system we use to melt ice, that where we redirect the sewage outflow on into the renews, you know, that was paid for with one of these hazard mitigation grants. And so those kinds of things are good and they have long-term benefit. So to the extent that we identified those, we knew that was coming, but it has, I think you said March, so we've been looking at what those are. And we have to update our plan, actually, but Mike, is that perfect? So we can talk about that in a minute. What's that? Staff capacity. There could be a long list of grants that are available and what really do you have the capacity for to really advance because it's a lot of work to apply for, manage, and administer the grant and the project. And so just prioritizing is pretty critical. And the last piece I might add in is with all that money, the infrastructure bill especially, some new federal requirements came along. And to give you a sense, I'll use USDA as an example. They have a grant and loan packages for communities. They're advising communities that would be 15% grant and 85% loan, that they might just go get a bank loan because the 15% grant, those new requirements plus cost of living might eat up that 15%. So they might not, if they go for the bank loan, they don't have all the federal requirements and they don't prop up their cost. What I usually tell people with grants is if you need them, they're good. If you do your cost benefit analysis of should I use a grant or should I use my own money or a bank loan? Sometimes the answer is my own money or a bank loan is the best answer. You're in a place you don't necessarily have that much right now to do, but my experience with city staff has been that they're really good at knowing what the grants are and doing what I'll call vertical stacking. Here's a project. How many funding sources can we do to make this work? But also horizontal stacking and thinking of a timeline. We've got these projects this year, these projects the next year. So if I use this grant here, I probably can't use it next year. I have to wait a few years to go back to the trough because somebody else needs a term and they're very good at both the vertical and the horizontal stack. I think our staff is great at that and these programs are new. So like who's training them on what is out there now or like I just hope they're getting support because we have so little capacity and I mean it sounds like you all have such great expertise. So just like hoping it's getting taxed and brought in and like not to chase grants. Just to look at here's our project pipeline. What is eligible? What might be the things that make sense? What doesn't make sense to chase down because we've seen the experience where bank loans end up being better or whatever. Don't waste your time. I mean that kind of advice seems super helpful. So thank you for whatever you can do to help guide our team. I think we will. I think I do need to have to help you get to where you need to be. So nowhere resource and you know you know me. Yeah I have a this former Pat Regional Planning Commission. Is that a venue to also get a larger project to have that mass through pulling together the towns through the Regional Planning Commission? There is and some of the commissions are doing that. I've heard of an effort in Central Vermont. I haven't checked in on it lately but where they were talking with some of the towns about a watershed wide model so that this was again something they did up in the Memorial County you can basically come in and say if I do this what might happen? Will that reduce my flood? And using I'm going to use say Jeffersonville again, Jeffersonville and Cambridge they were able to use that model to put together a package of projects that brought their flood levels down a foot. That's pretty significant. Usually a project is an inch here and inch there and you really have to work over time but they implemented a series of three or four projects that did a foot. They had a pretty unique situation to Rivers State Highway, you name it. But I've heard of that already in the works in Central Vermont. I don't know how far along. I think people are going to be thinking differently as they move through this recovery than they ever have before. Towns are going to be thinking across their boundaries and looking at their neighbors and thinking in a more regional way because they have to. Resources are so slim that what is that necessity as the mother of all inventions? I think we're entering that period where we are stretched and so we need some real solutions that don't look like how we would have done it before and I think everybody has that at top of mind from top to bottom. So I think we'll see some different things hopefully coming out in the weeks and months and years ahead. But know that staff, we're here for staff, we're sort of, and I'm credit Bonnie, she's really the one pouring through all of those programs, reading all those no-fos. If you have ever read a Notice of Funding Opportunity, if you have trouble sleeping, just pick up a no-fo and read it and you will not have a problem after that. And so and really there's a lot in there that tells you this could be a real opportunity or this might not be an opportunity and the state is doing a great job at taking a look at what programs could be brought back to the law and you know they have fascinating issues as well everywhere it does in terms of choosing those funds. But I will say one of the unique things is some of the new programs or even some of the existing programs where you compete nationally are allowing aggregating the projects. So it might be something like you need a $35 million project for small communities but you're able to cobble together and at one point the agency of transportation was talking to the regional planning commissions and saying can we pull so many culverts together to do culvert upgrades across the state. The challenge there is every culvert in that package is dependent upon every culvert in that package and so if one falls through you can do some challenges. So the culvert I don't think the culvert idea worked but some communities have big transportation projects for water or wastewater where if you can afford to cobble projects together there might be some new opportunities there. Well the meaning of watershed certainly is you know Washington County is certainly that could be very helpful for us. All right well thank you very much. So yes thank you I wanted to reassure Councilmember Hurrell and the rest of the council planning department Mike and Josh in particular are always scouring these funds. DBW is always scouring for the funds that are related to them Chris looking for energy funds. So we do have I mean we're not over capacity by any means but we certainly have people that are looking it's not and in conjunction with folks at the state and you know we do have and you know as you notice one of the things we didn't post was that capacity for grants and management and rating those and you know that was I think. All right thanks a lot for being here. See mom. Okay we are next item on the agenda is item 16 to adopt the strategic plan which we've been talking about for weeks at least. Yep and and so to the background is that we've had a couple of meetings we have the one sort of council retreat to talk about what our most important items are and then we had another more recent council meeting to talk about taking the highest priority items and structure them into the set of goals and strategies to to move forward on it and what we have in our packet tonight is staffs effort to convince that into a workbook plan. Do you want to take it from there Bill? If you said it just fine again what we we took the five areas that we finally settled on and tried to put either strategies that we had suggested or that we were all we were all committee community was already doing or that you had mentioned as key strategies and then the idea being that the sort of work initiatives would were probably more detailed than you needed to get into at least for this. Did you recall at the last time we talked one of the goals one of the things we said we were trying to do is put one of these goals on agendas to dig into the more make sure that we're following where we're at. We'll also go through the budget was related to goals and of course we don't well again depending on how that this process comes out there may not be a huge amount of resources to move a lot of things forward anyway but it doesn't mean we can't try to deal them with the staff that we have and it was kind of but again we did use this outline to draft the budget but obviously knowing that it was a draft and not a final final plan. So however you want to handle it it's really too weird. Yeah. Can you I want to remind everyone to keep their voices up. Yeah so it's kind of a tricky room. I suddenly forgot I'm in a meeting I was just like looking so when we say short term how many months are we referring to and then we say long term. Kelly take that one because she's so that it's what those terms are for me. Yeah sure um like Mark is a city manager so we put the terms in there so then you would pass for a raise the short term is really this year and so as you look through the initiatives and kind of see what we would be anticipating doing this year there's also medium term so that'd be you know two to three years and then the longer term would be five plus years and the reason why those longer term initiatives are still in there is because we have to get started to continue to be in progress. But what's neat about that is that then you're able to kind of see you know the things that we're going to be really focused on and you know I think and looking at this plan more intensively in terms of the initiatives you can see that it's really focused on fun recovery um helping our downtown um on infrastructure and so some of the key components as well as some of the um you know uh social services like you know our clinician and peer support. So I just want to um summarize short term one year yes mid term three to five years and long term five plus yes and on page four of the document underneath the um summary of the prioritized strategies there's a sort of listing of what they are just to make sure that then it's in there this is a really good question I thought you might ask. Thank you and I will try to find it. Mr. so um are we being asked to approve every single thing on here or are we just talking about the goals and the strategies? Okay so um so there the initiatives are things that might happen or how does that work? Well it is a good question I want to sound like we don't know what we're doing. The initiatives are essentially a work plan to move this forward and I think given the timing of where we're at in our ability to address this what our thinking is is that we when when we then come back and have a meeting say on the infrastructure one then we would go through all of that in detail and make sure you know obviously if there's something you see in there that's a huge concern and you think city shouldn't be doing you know should tell us that now but the idea would but these are these are generally some of these things have already been going on some of these things are moving things forward so this is a general this was developed with the staff with Kelly based on you know they've all listened to your conversations to try to reflect not only what they think what you want but also what they know needs to happen and what we've been working on so um but there's no magic to it but so the idea is that you would really the council to say these are our big priorities these are the strategies we want to follow and you know I don't think we have the time to devote to get into that while we're doing you know budget but then as we come out and say all right we're going to have a infrastructure agenda item at a future meeting and then we look at all those initiatives or you know the next one housing or whatever they might be and go through and say is are these the things that we really want to see that we're doing because unless you want to go through all that now which we could that's also okay so jump in be for the benefit of the public who may not have this whole thing in front of them the we've got a set of goals and a set of strategies on pages four four and five of 13 and the goals are to build and maintain sustainable infrastructure create more housing rebuild and plan for future resilience in the face of climate climate change practice a good environmental stewardship advance the economy to improve community prosperity for residents and local businesses so that people's basic needs are met and improve public health and safety for all including the unhoused so those are the big picture goals that we arrived at over a couple of meetings I haven't saw a couple of hands over here Donna or I'm sorry Lauren just you know having having been around for a number of years like the way I've seen this use which might kind of give comfort to this is that these more the you know what Jack just rattled off the goals and like high level priorities can help guide us I don't feel like it's ever felt like we've gotten locked into a specific work plan it's more this is like our best guess right now it always evolves based on you know issues that come up things fall off things get added on but we want to keep a focus on these big things and are we kind of keeping on track to that so I feel like that's how I've seen the city staff use it as opposed to feeling like we're locking in and approving a work plan right now it's never been used that way in my experience so I I wouldn't really worry about every word being right but I accept the goals and kind of high level priorities if those don't feel right then we should address that because I do think the city staff spends a lot of time making sure that we're focusing on those things so we want to get those right I don't know if that helped Carrie that's actually kind of what I'm concerned about is that there may be something small in here kind of went through this all the initiatives and marked the ones that look like they might cost money um I mean I'm sure they all they all come in some way but but that you know there's a study that's going to be done or something and that that then you know six months from now we see something on the consent that that says the study and it's because we and we don't discuss it because we already moved it in our strategic plan and so if we're not admitting to any of these initiatives now that's great um but because I don't think I agree that's how I view this also yeah yeah I appreciate the staff from our previous conversations the goals are accurate the major goals we really haven't discussed many of these prioritized strategies as a group at all um and I would like it to be a more specific work plan to I think the council owes that to the city as part of our job to help guide this enterprise um it doesn't feel like it's had that kind of guidance for a while and and this format I'm just not comfortable I know it's one you've used for a while um but it's just there's just too many pieces there's no focus um I'm really uncomfortable with all these prioritized strategies especially they've been starting talked about them or put them in our own order to help guide you the fact is it's the wrong time of year to do this um we're started too late it really needs to start right after elections and march when you have new city council members and build it for the year and so I think that should be a goal for next year my proposal if we accept this today is to accept the five goals I'm really uncomfortable with all the prioritize strategies and I would stop at page if you keep the prioritize strategies which I don't favor stop at page 11 um because the items that go on after that that are kind of be also maybe kind of things we'd like to throw in the list that's not prioritization or goal setting that is just shouldn't be there I mean they're good goals for the future things to talk about keep on somebody's radar screen they should not be part of this document well I thought you were going to say stop at page five I think that you can be very happy with it yeah yeah and yeah I well someone else could talk about it and I don't want to Donna I would say that one thing that's improved with this format is that and getting the staff report on a regularly besides all the quarterly it's really helpful to see what they decide is they're moving along on this project through these initiatives and this one got stuck I think that to me keeps me abreast of what's happened in the department so I do like the format for that reason and the software that they adapted to it so I hate to lose that but we should make it work better okay so Tim I think I heard you say you move the uh to approve this up to page five is that accurate yes is there a second um do we have want to have any more discussion at this point keeping in mind that we will we are planning on having a targeted session at future council meetings of every one of these top level goals I just ask a question as part of what I don't want to interrupt this vote but Tim raised a good point and um we always did this in March or April right after an election and it was just a couple of years ago we changed it and part of the the concern at that point was we had just adopted a budget from you know the former council so the new council would come in and sometimes it was a lot of people some of them wasn't a lot but they you know they'd set their goals but then it was almost you know not until this time of year before they could start putting funds in budget and doing something about it so it felt like there was a big disconnect so a couple years ago we said how about if we do these goals in September October right before the budget we're being clear about our priorities then we can then we can implement them in the budget and you know the what we've run into this year is just we we did start late because you know August September was not not an optimal time for us this year so then now we're bumping into the budget so I think you you know there's never a perfect time to do these never you know they all have pros and cons but if if the idea is to change back to doing it in the spring it'll be nice to know that now because I think we would continue to put these on agendas but also would really do the idea that we're going to do the real deep dive that if it's going to be next fall then I think we need to do deep dives on a regular basis so I just it's it's you know it's your plan we obviously we rely on it heavily and we do you know like to make sure that we're fault you know our work is doing what you want us to do so in addition to provide basic services so I see some of the strategies have short slash medium term so I would suggest to change medium term instead of having two different terms and if you finish earlier great right but if you finish it in which is two to three years the document says medium term will be good and I would feel more comfortable approving or voting on short term which is one year instead of voting something five plus years maybe I won't be here right so so that's my suggestion thank you just the motion before us now is just the first five pages so I don't think it even gets oh that's okay no I think I think that's a great point to make and you know I think for years the way we plan we even thought about this has has been a combination of what do we need to do now and what do we need to do now to address some very long-term needs you know like over the years we've done zoning ordinance amendments which are we are going to foster housing development years into the future and but we have to be thinking about what we want years into the future in order to know what we want to do to the zoning ordinance just one example any other member Donna I still think everything's been done in one year so that's further discussion for the future yeah I guess so I can say that for the first five pages then like let's switch the short term to medium term then I will contribute this discussion yeah so I think I see at least one member of the public wishing to be heard on this I'll be brief I agree that the subsequent six through 15 need a whole lot more screwed and refinement action by the council with public comment even in one through five I would suggest that you amend the second the second column really should be activities not those are not priority strategies those are just activities and what you're seeking to do in subsequent meetings is develop initiatives and prioritize strategies so those those things that you look at they're just concepts you know rebuild from the flood or develop a policy or partner on it those are not prioritize strategies so filling in the the fine-grained details such that you could but we also can't afford to wait till next spring to start on some of this stuff some of this stuff is urgent and long overdue so I would ask you quickly set this on the agenda to highlight in red what you what needs action before you've got time to flesh out or redo pages seven through 13 if all what I'm saying there are some urgent matters which I keep badgering you about but uh I'm happy to participate in it how quickly can you get this done how for a little money but that's short enough that nicely um any other discussion by the council we have a motion and a second are you ready for the vote all those in favor signify by saying aye any opposed okay we've adopted this plan bill I think you're going to wait for a future meeting for yep guidance on whether we're doing this again in March or I just want to be sure we slide that issue yes of course and I think well taken okay that concludes item 16 it is now 824 time for our uh 10 minute intermission starting with the administration's proposal on our budget thank you mr mayor members of the council um you all received the electronic version of the budget proposal last night and uh you all have budget books today so you can go home and draw on them and make cross things out and for some of you of a certain generation can draw circles and arrows and paragraphs on the back of each one um see some people laughed some people did it right and um so anyway we uh I'm just going to give you a quick high level view of the budget um and then we have a lot of folks here happy to answer questions about any specific parts we do have well I'll I'll talk about the future so here we are uh basically our budget goals for this year are not that different than uh any year and number one is to implement the strategic plan and we're so good that you just passed it and already we've got a budget to implement it continued investment in infrastructure deliver uh responsible services and stay within the range of inflation rate range of inflation rate which as of uh November was 3.1 percent uh came out the day after we completed the budget so we may have used 3.2 percent in other places but same idea so that's what that's what we set out to do um I think really key factors that faced us and there were many uh but the uh increased costs and delays uh you know we've been in kind of uh trying to catch up since COVID costs you know we've had inflationary costs we've had costs of uh staff we've had you know delays and you know just like the rest of the world nothing unusual to us uh inability to hire staff because you know extended vacancies delays and production chains and delivery chains so we have these infrastructure projects and then um you know as you know in our current year we had to rescind about a one and a half million dollars due to the flood and you know creating a uh a cushion for the reappraisal changes and those kind of things and then the reappraisal itself not only the uncertainty on the grand list but the impact on residents uh who just got a new appraisal and in some cases uh you know drastic change in their property taxes so all of that conspired to say uh we really need to to uh have a hard reset of our budget uh based on you know particularly trying to stay within those um financial costs one of the things that going back to number one and we'll talk about this a little bit more is every year you know I've sort of noted that we've really budgeted our operations costs very tightly um but you know I think it really caught up with us this past year where we just we just didn't have enough to to do what we needed to do and part of the reason we overspent the budget last year is because we just didn't have enough in things like overtime and salt and sand and supplies and all those kinds of things insurance costs so we worked really hard and I give um Sarah LaCroix our finance director you know kudos for this to build a budget that really reflected what we've been spending for the last few years in those kinds of nuts and bolts issues and make sure we are adequately funded in legal costs and all those kinds of things and not taking a chance it's as well we've been spending this but if we drop it down maybe we'll get by this year and so our base for those kinds of things we feel very comfortable with but that obviously then creates a pressure on everything else but we we heard a lot of talk about going back to basics and doing these things so we've got to do the most important things right so that's where we that's where we are so here's the strategic plan that you just adopted uh this was a draft at the time uh and I don't need to go through it we just talked about it but this was kind of we use these as guidelines um although obviously as you will see we we really weren't able to deliver on all of them because of of our funding resources so taking a look at them the first one was build and maintain infrastructure so we have 11 million dollars in FEMA projects going most of that will be FEMA funded that's good uh although it's not really new and improved infrastructure although hopefully when we're done it will be better than it was before it started uh we funded the capital plan fully at 2.4 million that's been that was the steady state goal set in the mid to late 2000 2016 17 in that area we got up to that amount in FY 20 and then since then I've had to nick away at that we restored some of it through ARPA so this year we we set a hard line in the CN that we were fully fund capital plan that said that's really not enough money for all of our capital so the good news is we're funding the target this is the number we promised last year that we would fund this year but as the three members of the the council that went through the capital projects you know today we we left three million dollars in cap projects and equipment out includes 658,000 in paving that is the highest amount since FY 20 that's the good news the bad news is we probably should have about another 300,000 in there to really do what needs to be done we've got about two million dollars for water line improvement that includes the east state project bond as well as other funds that are in our budgets we do have money set aside in the water budget which we will talk about later for water line but it we've so we've talked about 13.2 million being the prime goal for our water line improvements we've got the first two million of it ready to go and it's over a 10 or so year period so we're really on on that and our we have plans for our major projects in place the downside is we are reducing one position in dpw currently vacant and that will you know reduce our ability to do projects and respond you know we we had a concern expressed about snow removal and all those kind of things everything we do is going to be in fact impacted when we have less people yeah so when you're talking about reducing positions is is the thinking like not fill it for this fiscal year because we don't have the budget or eliminate it and then reassess staffing needs in the future like how are you thinking about that well i i would say that we think we think that you know we had reached what was i mean you could always use more but i think we'd reach what we thought was efficient staff you know the sort of right size staffing um i don't know that we really i think we'd like to put them all back at some point but looking at this and then you know going further ahead and looking at all the other needs it's just tough to imagine that all happening next year so but certainly the goal wouldn't be to permanently reuse but you know these are these get changed every year and we'll see how it goes i don't know that we have a specific thought on other than this is what we need to do now and next year when we do budget if we can put them back great if we can't we won't i mean it's it's driven by how much how much we can spend how much the taxpayers can handle and what the balance of all the the funds are how we shift the priorities around and then ultimately what you all choose to do with them so i'm assuming there may be some other vacancies not being replaced in this fy 25 budget so that indicates some reduction of service as well as what impact went over time those are two things i guess i'm going to be looking for as we move forward on this discussion well anytime we reduce somebody it's a reduction in service overtime is a topic we'll probably spend a lot of time on because in a couple places we're looking to restructure how we do over time and that is easier said than done and so you know i think the idea would be that if the position was eliminated that particular position wouldn't be filled with overtime all the time but so that would just be a full reduction but yeah it's it's a it's a more complicated conversation probably when we get to those particular items whenever you want to talk about that does mean less service does mean absolutely right no that's right yeah and in this particular case you know one dpw position is just one less person plowing one less person responding to water and sewer main breaks one less person doing cleanup afterwards and you know this is not a department this is a department that's had a lot of reductions over the years to start with we had you may recall we had cut them down and just a couple years ago we put two back because they were understaffed and now this is one of those two coming back out so um so create more housing is a goal i guess the positive is we put 50 000 in from uh for the housing trust fund that is a reduction of 110 000 from our yep the initial f y 24 budget and a reduction from 250 000 that was requested for the housing trust fund we did keep full planning and development staff to keep our grant and management capacity as well as the ability to keep moving at the housing project and other projects forward working with housing developers recognizing and we have zoning amendments in place uh process which will be coming to you well we're going to talk about when they come to you later this meeting last year we put 40 000 in for country club road uh you may recall that plus the housing trust fund plus our economic development money paid for all the consultant work that we had done so we believe given the fact that we have a master plan now and that the FEMA housing is going to be there um for a couple years we can do what needs to be done with our own staff this year and um we are getting pretty sizable lease money from FEMA um most of it's allocated for the water line that needs to go in but there will be some access so if we need a little bit of professional funding we can use that there so that's our approach practice good environmental steward we stewardship we have kept the sustainability facilities coordinator we kept 2 000 from meaq which was reduced from their 12 000 dollar request uh the wastewater project continues to move forward as do cso you'll remember it i'm sure my own question in my brain so i don't know that's nice thank you sorry um but this is the beginning of of a trend you're going to see uh we've got the my ride funding that is you know i believe if that's our full local share um the conservation commission has had 3500 dollars forever that's cut to zero tree board 4000 cut to zero and really one that hurts uh the the parks americorps at my cc program summer program that you call they saved our bacon this summer uh during the flood and um that is being proposed to be eliminated in its entirety unless it can be um funded through other outside funds um so advanced the economy we've funded 17 500 for the homeless's task force that's reduced from 5 000 5 45 000 excuse me um the community fund we held it at 134 150 which is the amount in the current budget in the prior budget but they had requested more based on the amount of applications they had received uh the 166 875 was 60 percent of their applications this year and we've just kept them at their um at their current flat amount um the mob you're alive we did fully fund them i don't i think given the needs in the community we felt that having vibrant downtown and working with them uh they're essential but we cut the full hundred thousand dollars for economic development we cut ten thousand dollars for our public arts program and ten thousand dollars for social equity and justice those are all going to zero um prove public health and safety uh keeping the crisis intervention team program uh the social worker position is being uh finally got filled and we have an excellent person and so we're retaining that funding we are proceeding with the shelter planning at the direct center as you directed us uh the senior center is largely operating as it was so that provides certainly a lot of health and safety for seniors but we're uh we had one vacant position in fire that we held this year to try to save money and we're not filling that and then we have a fire position where we have an individual who will be leaving and we're not going to backfill that position we've also um proposing to cut some pretty significant overtime in fire and the chief is working with the staff to try to figure out how they can meet that um we're cutting the police canine program um so the officer will still be with us but we will not continue to fund the sort of training feeding medical care and there's some overtime that's required for a canine and so that will save us about twenty thousand dollars we're reducing one rec staffing position a full-time position as well as some other operating cuts and the rec child care program is being eliminated in its entirety so provide responsible and engaged government that isn't really a goal that wasn't part of your top five but it has been on our list and it kind of addressed some of the remaining items so I kept it in we we consider staying at inflation um responsible or at least as per prior practice we've kept the communications coordinator position in the zen city platform which we are using to do all our surveys and getting things out this year we did start something new the times argus uh we have a page in the times argus once a month uh for only three thousand dollars so we're retaining that but we are going to make further administrative staff reductions of sixty five thousand those yet to be determined but we we are on the hook for them uh we are proposing eliminating the bridge page uh for fourteen thousand dollars it's been a long running way to communicate with the community um I know people just mentioned how much they like seeing our strategic plan and the software in which we present it but that is the envisio software we're proposing to eliminate that uh again we do the community survey we did it last two years ago so this would have been the year for it uh to do ideally you do it every other year we we've zeroed that out committee stipends we've zeroed those out and the outside lobbyist funding we've zeroed that out so that is what is not in the budget I'd say the the good news is the capital plan is fully funded and it's within inflation the bad news is everything else so just looking graphically um this is kind of where our money comes from as you can see about two-thirds of it is property taxes uh revenues and fees uh and as I mentioned one of the the key draws we've reduced estimated revenues for local options rooms meals and alcohol tax by about 142 thousand you know that's one of those things that by next July one maybe that landscape will be drastically changed maybe all the stores will be open the hotel will be reopened and that money will be exceeding revenues but right now we can't count on that um pilot is solid but those are some of our major ones just taking a quick look at again you have all this data that's really as much for people watching you need to see a little bit of where we spend money um not surprisingly you know public safety and infrastructure public works are our biggest our biggest uh sources of funds capital plan public works together 29 30 percent police 20 fire 50 you know police and fire together 36 percent so those are those are our big areas again looking at just cutting those numbers a little bit differently we are over you know over 50 percent of our money goes for personnel um and that again is not surprising we talk about this every year but we are a a people driven operation we can automate to some extent but we can't automate you know driving the snow plow we can't automate answering the fire call we can't or the ambulance call we can't automate the police response we can't automate many of the things that we do so there's we're always going to be people heavy because that's the work that we do this is probably hard to read but it is just the projected tax rate again the math is in your your screen but if you look all the way across to the bottom you'll see that it is the 3.1 percent projected tax increase of 2.75 cents I would note that the budget itself is only up 2.6 percent or something like that the overall budget but because revenues are only up 1.7 percent that's why that is so I think you know in terms of our overall spending given everything we cut out of it it's it's a pretty modest spending proposal just taking a look at how if you take the average tax bill and interestingly you know based on the reappraisal now an average of residential property is now $370,000 and not familiar so what their tax bill would be at this tax rate and just again how much they sort of pay for service at once you back out specific revenues dedicated to certain services in general revenues is net all net tax dollars just a little snapshot of if you're paying an average tax municipal tax bill this is what you're paying for and how much you're paying for what you get again a capital plan this is really just to show you how that plan is supposed to work if you look in the back years you can see there was kind of a hundred and sixty six thousand dollars a year growth in the plans f5 1516 with the idea of getting it up to that 2.4 million and then you know we had to do the rescission in f5 20 we tried to restore it all and f5 21 I did all again and f5 22 because of COVID oh I guess I know what happened we had we had already done the f5 21 budget in fact it was the week Tom meeting vote and never for f5 21 happened the week before the the shutdown great timing yeah so that's why these things were a little funky but so last year we came in or two years ago we did the 2.154 million we were going to try to get it to 2.4 million last year but we didn't we kept it the same and we promised that we would do 2.4 million this year and we have we're projecting here we're just showing that we really think this needs to grow we're just showing 4% a year but we really need to be creating more money for those of you that aren't familiar this is a combination of pay as you go projects equipment funding and our debt payments so as if you grow the amount of money in the total fund and debt payments drop off then you you sort of create additional funding in your annual dollars and that is the goal or you could then make it possible to see choice to use more debt to achieve some of those goals instead of paying for it as you go but that's the basic principle behind the capital plan and just a snapshot of sort of the last 20-year history uh why am I you know what we're talking about capital fund obviously anytime we decide to defer purchasing vehicles or something like that that doesn't mean we've saved that money forever right those vehicles are not going to operate forever right they show up and get a later year and yeah and that shows up either in an increased maintenance costs or they show up in a future year at a higher price so yeah it's it's uh you know it's not unlike those of us at our homes right you know we know we need to fix the roof but we can't afford it so we put it off and the next year it costs more but that's when we can afford it so you know we're making those kinds of decisions so in terms of our process uh tonight we're giving you presentation of course we'll entertain whatever discussion and you want to make next week we have a regularly scheduled council meeting but the only substantive item on the agenda is well now we have appointment of the complete streets committee but other than that we have it's the budget so that's really a time to dig in we've scheduled a meeting on Wednesday, January 3rd a special workshop to dig in on the budget as well obviously if we don't need it we don't need it but um there it is and then by the 10th we should be holding public hearings doesn't mean you have to finalize your budget but we should at least have something that we're presenting to the public as at least a draft budget we've we popped a meeting in there on the 17th if you want another council workshop you don't have to have it uh January 24 we do have to be done that is the final public hearing and that's when you would improve the budget and the warning and you know the ballot for town meeting that's to meet the the appropriate deadlines and then town meeting is on March 5th so and and of course you have you we have the ability to call even more meetings if you'd like them I don't know you know how much you want to spend on this but um we it's certainly the key policy document that you have during the year so um you know you need to feel comfortable with it so that is a process that we've outlined so far that you've outlined you adopted this schedule a while back and that is the proposal that we've provided to try to stay within the financial constraints fund capital and at least distribute the pains such as it will uh across the board and in in areas to try to at least hit some key support for some of your key goals even though recognizing we're taking funding away from a lot of them and I say we we're proposing and I guess that's it so I don't have any more in this presentation like I said most of the department heads are here if you have specific questions about their departments we are I think still planning to do the videos but certainly are also able to have any of the meet or talk with you at any time in this process that's all I have thanks all right thank you um Lauren or other people have more substantive so there was the issue raised about the education tax abatement piece is this assuming that we are that that is going to pass and that's built in are you assuming we're not getting that so this assumes um this assumes the same grand list as this year so so there is some risk in terms of if there were appeals that's different than the abatement so the the appeals that you've already granted will lower this number a little bit um and we'll probably have to make an adjustment once we have a better idea at some point during the budget um but there may also be some growth we're not aware of a lot of it but people could have done construction and those kind of things that what weren't in this grand list as far as the abatements go we have not accounted for that we did put there is a factor in the rescission that we made this year for this current budget when we said 1.5 million I think we had some allowance in there for some of that if if it were to come to fruition but frankly you know if worst case scenario they were all granted we had to pay 1.5 million dollars I think we'd be having fire sales and you know big sales to fund the government at that point um so uh but the uh yeah so we've tried to account for what we think is reasonable and what things can happen um and we don't know how many you know there have not been that many abatement applications as we understand but they still could come and we certainly know a lot of people that had properties out of commission for a while that weren't doing what they need to do so okay questions right Carrie last town meeting we we approved uh a potential bond right that would include confluence park and other things potentially but we haven't actually issued that bond great um so how does that factor in here in terms of potential revenue I'm gonna so normally we would I don't know I'm gonna say or how she have we got approved bonds projected into the debt payments no so so if if we were to issue that debt then then that debt in um future years would go up and the annual amount would go down assuming we stayed at 2.4 million for that just stayed flat you know it's a fixed sum of money so as one goes up so we have done some of that work in that bond just we have done the confluence portion portion but we have done some of the other work and some of it is in progress so some of it will have to be but was was your question are there projects that are in the budget that could potentially be used the bond for that would then free up other resources or no yeah that is that is my question so are there is there work that's being planned in this budget that we're counting on money from that bond for no okay no no because that's all from you know that's prior work that we're planning on getting done that was already approved uh things like tournament Wales was in there the street light uh the signals and there was a retaining wall and is that where the heat in the town yeah the city garage energy retrofit so that that's all work we're still working toward um you know any these are all new this would be new money so the only thing I suppose so if we didn't issue all of the bond we could conceivably use what's left for something else we'd have to look at the language of the bond or maybe revote it or some of that we are not proposing just given the overall situation we're not proposing any bonds this year at all because we just need to like I said hard reset just confluence is still uh it's it's still going to come back to us for approval in the next year in this budget year so presumably isn't it yeah so there's there's a deadline for people to for them to bring in money and you know I actually it's going to be in the weekly bebo but we just found out yesterday they just got another $200,000 grant so they're getting closer to the total um and so at some point I'm suspecting some they're going to come in with a fully funded project and we're going to have to decide what to do with that right and so if we um if we go ahead with it the the investments we've already made are taken care of by the grant money if we don't then we're on right we would have to pay that off that's not in here no that would be assumed to be within the so what we what we would probably do is let that part of the bond so the bond was like $1.8 million or $1.2 million so $600.4 that's we would let $150,000 and not the remaining forfeit okay so it would be in the debt payments in the future debt payments okay yes I've got a few questions uh and I'm sure I'll have many more as as we go go on um uh reducing overtime in uh in fire how do how do we do that and our cheat gallons is here I just it strikes me that mostly we have overtime because it's stuff that we have to be doing we we have to make people work over their allocated hours yeah so it's a pretty complicated situation and I'll try to do it justice quickly but I think as we go through it we might want to talk about it more it really has to do with scheduling and uh so obviously when there's a call and people come in for a call we have that's not what we're talking about but there are you know I think it's how many people are on duty at particular times is there you know do we need to call someone in if someone's on vacation or calls in sick it's because some overtime you know Bob's out today so we call Mike in to fill his shift that's overtime so can we schedule in a way that we don't have to call that person in by the ways that we can you know stack our our our group differently and you know where Bob's talked to the the team they're trying to work on it in the fire department I mean obviously there are pros and cons to all of it and you know the downside is there would mean probably there would be less people on duty at certain times and that affects service and response and those kind of things I mean there's no no question when you you know you make that kind of reduction it's going to change is it you know and I think we can we will have more information about time of day and response and those kind of things as we go into that where that's what we're working on but that is that is one of the tougher challenges of all the proposed reductions and you know obviously if we can't find it there then we've got to find it somewhere else we're talking about eliminating a position in public works I think we've all been getting emails from people and it comes up every year I'm convinced that the alternate side of the street parking system was the way to go but I've also heard you say that there might come a time where staffing reductions would force us to get out of that and so we we looked at that at one point in our deliberations we actually looked at reducing a second public works position and the DPW was clear are they said if we do that first of all they weren't in favor of it but if if we do that um we will have to go back to a full winter ban we cannot do the alternate side because that means people coming out a couple times you know coming in during the you know they said we will have to go back it's just so much more efficient for them to have government 15 to April 15 or whatever it is no parking overnight on the streets any night and they can do what they need to do when they need to do it you know we did that for years and as I find out it's really that's what most people still do most communities still do it's really just us Wenuski and Burlington that are doing other things and and in in fairness it's to make it our downtown more livable it's you know a lot of people are in apartments and you think about it that disproportionately affects lower income people who don't necessarily have a driveway and that sort of thing and so they need to place the park their car and you know that's why we did the bands we tried that that didn't really work so we've tried the alternate side of the street um but if we were to reduce our public works capacity we would not be able to in any way shape or form adequate we maintain the roads um without going back to fully so people would not be getting their tickets but they also wouldn't have a place to park any night all winter long correct they still get to the park on the street and then get towed right yeah but presumably more of those people just get the idea they just can't park and I know that you know a lot of people I'm just you know this isn't really the topic but because I know people are interested in this um you know I know it's counterintuitive it's a beautiful night there's no snow why am I getting a ticket but the fact is that we don't always know when something's going to storm or when something's going to ice and they've got to get out and do salting or uh or maybe they're coming back and we we tried we tried for a couple of years to do a only calling bands when we needed to and it just failed miserably I mean we towed so many cars and we ticketed so many cars and it really failed on the follow up nights the night was actually storming people kind of got it oh it's snowing tonight I probably need to move my car but then two nights later when we want to do cleanup we did all the announcements we sent out all the notices we did everything and we'd be towing 35 cars and you know the tow trucks couldn't keep up with it so then the cars would be on the street so we'd have to go around them leaving mounds of snow and then people were unhappy maybe it it's a great idea that doesn't really work um so and having your tow car towed is a little way worse than getting a ticket well you could still get a a tow now if you if you're if you're on the street on the wrong side of the street and they are actively plowing but my recollection is of last couple of years we haven't had much towing correct it's been way down um you mentioned the district heat fund I know it took some damage during the flooding will that be fully operational should be I think it almost is now it's working yeah there we go there we go excellent yeah great there were there were a lot of issues um some of them were issues with the city uh some of it was issues in the the individual buildings with their meters and their hookups and we've been working trying to get those corrected so you know it's actually been one of those interesting things we've been able to provide heat for a while but some people haven't been able to take heat and we're even trying to work through that like do we bill them for heat that they couldn't take that we could provide and so that's what we're sorting that out too that's another whole we're trying to keep you all out of that one definitely they've had some mechanical damage to the building yeah right so you know um some of the smaller things like the tree board of the conservation commission um obviously they're they're not big dollar items but uh one operationally what does it mean and if and two do they get also get outside grant funding that they can fall back on you know you should probably talk to them you know we should maybe ask them or ask this alec here i don't know or alec was here alec's either of those do you know i know um some of them have some money in the bank some don't we had difficulty sort of choosing between those types of things saying well this one can stay in this one can't if we're just going through so hi alec sure um i'm also the staff liaison for the tree board and the conservation commission so they um do occasionally pull down grant applications or successful grant grants for various projects and i would say that those dollar items go to either matching them or doing kind of specific committee projects like the vscc rain garden i think is a good example of a one that sort of a combined grant and city funded project that the conservation commission put on so they tend to do those kind of small projects that um keep people on the committee you know or keep their interests going uh okay thanks um yes uh donna i had a detailed letter from one of the situant and one of her comments was most of our staff seem to be hourly are we following the normal kind of hourly rate salary rate for those that are indeed more management than hourly employees um yes i mean people that are salary don't get over time and don't work on an hourly basis she was wondering if there were more that were eligible for that if the review of that could we we look at that a lot um there are some you know very specific standards as to you know how independent you work how much you supervise uh what you're responsible can you make independent decisions um i would say we're pretty we're pretty i think we're in pretty good shape on that actually we have a fair amount of salary people but not not everybody you know i think i think we've done that analysis on virtually every position okay i assume so but i hadn't and you know quite frankly particularly when people move out of one category to another say when they get promoted you know we have to make sure the salary is enough to make it worth um them not getting their overtime so i don't know if it's a real savings per se um that you and you know it might be on the short on a given week it might be that somebody's at a council meeting and not getting overtime like all of us that are here but uh on the on the whole um likewise felt like there were a lot of services we provide our police uh and senior center where regional people come in and do not necessarily pay a more commentary fee for that or any fee at all and whether or not there was any movement to more to looking at that so um that of course is is our our budget conflict in a nutshell here is that we provide services for 15 some 1000 people on any given day and paid four by eight that's you know we've been talking about that for as long as i've been the city manager here um so some of our programs like rec and seniors have differential rates for non-residents it's about 50 percent higher for non-residents than it is for residents so activity fees and membership fees and those kinds of things um fire department the ambulance calls are billed um against people's insurance whatever so regardless of whether you're a resident or non-resident you get a bill uh you know fire calls are typically in the city um unless we go on a mutual aid call to another community and we get mutual aid responses to mobiliar um you know police we don't bill anybody unless we find them um we don't bill them for direct services uh so you know everything's a little bit different the parks of course or you know people come from all over and there's you know those are free for everybody uh the state does pay you know as i mentioned full pilots so to the extent that they are at least are paying for their impact on it you know their workers and the people that come to the state uh that you know for who we're you know when we plow state street are we plowing it for the resident that's coming to work or for the non-resident that's coming in to go to you know we're just plowing it for everybody so it's yeah but that is that's a nutshell and that's why you know i think that's one of the reasons why the council adopted the rooms meals and alcohol tax so that you know non-residents that are staying in town and eating and you know those kinds of things are at least contributing to the well-being of the community but there's certainly no perfect formula and we're not alone in this and you know burlington washington dc you know in new york they're always you know trying to figure out how to deal with that one year we talked about taking away sidewalk plowing and the city not doing it and citizens did not want us to do that but at this point we've expanded sidewalks to the point that we've got four sidewalks is that correct it's not here so um i think that's right it's at least three i'm not sure it's four maybe there's a fourth there's a backup they break a lot they break a lot but if i looked in here i probably could find the exact what we pay for sidewalk plowing not necessarily it's not probably not broken out that way we'd have to do some analysis i mean it would be you know we have staff that respond and when there is it when there is a snow event some people have a plow route that they're driving on the roads and others have a plow route on sidewalks so they would be part of the general cost what we can tell you when we can give you this data at a future meeting we do have now uh we've finally implemented the new asset management system from dbw of last completion they can now tell you what what their direct cost for a storm is and i think the it was just a couple the one a couple weeks it was like $25,000 for accounting their staff time vehicle wear and tear in the vehicle salt sand everything that they're doing but that's all that's not breaking out how much is sidewalks and how much is roads they might be able to do that i don't know just turned your camera on is that because you have something some information to give us i was trying to give you a cover there man i had to get cleared to be unmuted here um yeah just just letting you guys know that we have three sidewalk plows we have actually four units that can be used four pieces of equipment that can be used for sidewalk plowing but three operators dedicated to the sidewalk routes just for clarification we don't and we can like bill said we can break out the cost specific to snow removal on sidewalks as opposed to streets we haven't done that yet but we're still you know we're in infancy the asset management software still learning how to use it but we certainly could not work on that so that's something the council's interested in and seeing thanks for sharing rock castle you had your hand up a little while ago and i wanted to make sure all the council members had a chance to ask their questions but i definitely would like to hear from you if you want to unmute yourself okay it looks like you're unmuted okay sorry about that what i had just when i didn't know i was muted on my computer here first are the council members i'm happy to wait i'll go after the council members have had their opportunity you're good to go right now okay thank you thanks for the presentation i had a couple of questions yes um for example sometimes when we cut resources we could also be cutting revenue so one item i saw coming off this is just basically to understand it better i'm sorry i'm not using my camera i'm actually sitting in a dark living room right now come to find so so maybe that is your camera pardon me i said maybe that is your camera there you go um what i wanted to ask is under economic development with a hundred thousand dollars being cut what had that been generally used for what would have that been used for please so that that's a great question um yeah and one we struggled with there had been a group called the um what was it my period development corporation who had formed and we provided them a hundred thousand dollars year in funding i think they used that to hire an executive director and run their operations and they went out of business two or three years ago um we retained that money to for various projects so last year that entire hundred thousand was dedicated toward the development of the country club road project uh that plus the housing trust fund plus an additional 40 basically funded all the the consultant work that developed the master plan and all the other re and all the public processes and that kind of thing so we don't have a need for that for that work this year but you are correct that in general having funds for economic development is a good idea may i ask though that brings me to my next question and this is another you know sense of ignorance that i do have but when i think about economic development and the businesses and i i'm unaware right now and this is i apologize this isn't probably the place for it but as we're talking about budget economic development i'm thinking about the recovery for in the future planning for you know for what we're doing regarding um weather events so where does that fit into the budget may i ask hi well that i'm sure there will be a lot of conversation about that there is not a lot of money in there are really any specific money allocated to that other than in in projects we just heard a presentation about hazard mitigation funds that we could be using there is a my period commission on resource and recovery that the city is a cosponsor of and we have a one of the council members is a member that is absolutely that is focused on that and going to be making some recommendations to this council and the community about projects that should move ahead and you're out you know you're right that is a source of funding that could be used for those purposes if we had it um so okay thank you and i did jump in after feeding my family so i didn't see the front end the last only last question that i have thank you for your time the other cut that i noticed is and again just living where we live and um i wanted to know what what have we done in the past with the ten thousand dollars that we're cutting for social equity and justice um i may let someone else answer that question lauren you want to there's a committee that does that and it's basically help fund the committee's work um in but yeah there's there's two line items um that are proposed to not be funded so ten thousand for the social not economic justice advisory committee that group um for example we had hired a consultant who had worked with the city they had done extensive outreach stakeholder engagement developed an equity assessment of the city an equity plan with a suite of recommendations that we've been then working through to try to implement to make our community more equitable um and and then one of those recommendations for example was a stipend program so people serving on city committees um could access a stipend if that would help make it more accessible for more people to be able to serve um yeah also propose for a cut okay it's that type of work if that helps it does thank you thank you and and and and lastly just to educate um educate a property owner here in the city i i just ask what is a public's next step when we want to raise our hand for reconsiderations in this process is there an opportunity for that is it on one of those next two meetings that are coming up or what yeah at any of the council meetings that happen they're all open to the public council usually takes public comment and then there are two formal public hearings that are required for the budget and then obviously uh we get to vote in march um but you know in terms of how the council shapes their budget the all of those meetings that we noted um are open and available for public participation yeah thank you and lauren asked earlier about the educational uh what is called lauren abatement education abatement i forgot the name of it but um and i know that the school board's you know really grappling with that do we have a date in mind of when they'll have some more information so those are actually two different things okay the school board and i don't pretend to be an expert on school funding but the you know the school board has now a new funding formula that changes the way student-weighted students are reimbursed and that is the sort of rate shock that they're dealing with because popular doesn't fare particularly well under that state funding and in addition i think the state recently announced that education taxes statewide could go up as much as 18 percent if you know our senator comings was talking about that earlier tonight those are direct education sort of school budget related questions not that they don't affect all of us what we're talking about here was under the law if a property gets abated because of damage and you know fire flood whatever and the city chooses to abate them we have to you know they don't have to pay their municipal tax or their education tax but the city has to then pay the education tax for them to the state and basically our our pitch to our legislators was we have we don't have the money to do that we can't make up the difference so we are asking the legislators to pass a bill that under flood circumstances basically the state would pick that up on their own we the local taxpayers wouldn't have to pay the ed share of an abated property thank you so much for that educate for all of the help in understanding better tonight appreciate it that's all i have any members of the council this one yeah go ahead Donna about the elimination of the communication coordinator it's not okay my reading says elimination of communication so that 90s not there any that's not that isn't as well as the sustainable facility yeah those are both in the budget good good thank you um is there anyone in the member of the public in the room who'd like to either raise questions or address the council at this stage i'll be real brave and pick it up again another day it's late um just on the parking issue i think that the especially related to the costs of plowing and this the costs of towing and the cost of tickets there's a complex revenue thing going on there that the people don't understand why if there's no snow and the storm two weeks ago hasn't been cleaned up you know as soon as the first is the storm is clean as as soon as it storms it should be cleaned up and then until there's another snow parking should be relaxed you know we we don't need to write a lot of tickets and tow cars if the roads are clear and there's no snow going on so if we have to go to the you know flashing lights or robo calls to tell people this is a night where everybody's got to get off the roads that's one option but i don't think we should what i heard if maybe i misheard it but what i heard bill say is not the understanding of most people who are wrestling with this thing it's not fair it's not reasonable and i'll repeat many of the folks who you need to be hearing from have thrown up their hands because they don't have faith that it's worth their time to come and talk to you i still have a little bit to to just to quickly answer that for those that are listening that have faith we did the robo calls we did the flashing lights and it did not work frankly we were towing and ticketing way way way more cars than we are now um it was abject failure we don't tow on nights that we're not out plowing but we do ticket because people need to to park in the right place because we don't know when a storm can happen you know the the problem is you know for every person that doesn't understand why they're getting a ticket there's someone else who thinks they're going to beat the system and then their cars are parked in this plow way and we can't plow and then the situation gets even worse so we have a rule um back when we back when we had blanket um blanket ban from november to april we still ticketed no matter what the weather i mean this is not a new thing it's it is a it's there for operational purposes so i appreciate it's not a revenue thing at all ideally we would never issue a ticket because everyone was complying that would be best case scenario for us that people were on the right side of the road or in their driver area wherever and we didn't have to issue an entire ticket or towing when all went for a long bill um i wanted to follow up on on the question of the caller raise which is how do we balance revenues lost revenues with cost savings for for all of those items on the budget that we're cutting like the the rec child care program i assume the savings that you're talking you've got in here is net of any lost uh fees that's right yeah i mean i think you know i we invested in i mean that's a this is an old story but we and you know the city chose to invest in mbc and tim i think was involved with that and you know i'm not sure we got direct revenue results you know really i don't know that it worked i think everyone really tried and there was a good faith effort um you know i think if we had a specific project to invest in um we probably would have kept that money you know if there was a reason to say hey if we spend this kind of money we're going to get this much money back but um but holding a hundred thousand dollars this year um you know we would just be cutting more services somewhere else oh yeah i think that's an easy cut to sell it's you know we're at zero sum anything you put i mean that for us we're at zero some ones we hit the 3.2 target um and just to get to that was you know huge so um you know how you all choose to handle it of course is your decision all right we've got many more hours to view these but oh sherry you're back up thank you very rock so you yeah unmuting is a process on this it's not one click it's a couple uh only to clarify that the sometimes a question comes for understanding not necessarily an opinion i had no opinion but i did want to understand that's all thank you great thank you great i appreciate that so we will have many more opportunities to spend hours going over the budget book and uh for anyone who's watching out there if you if you go to the city's web page everything that we're hearing is going to be on the web page of the city's but budget book is already up there on the web page so you can see in more detail than you ever would have wanted to what we're spending our money on and what we're proposing to spend the money on and i hope everyone will review that at whatever level of detail you can tolerate and make your make your views known because we are spending our taxpayers money and on what we think are important and often vital services and we want to make sure that we're we're getting it right because taxpayers are going to be the ones making the decision ultimately lauren did you have something to say yeah i know i know we have lots of time to to discuss um i mean first of all just i do want to say thank you for the hard work that went into this this was an incredibly hard thing and i know that the ability of the team to come together to try to figure out how to make this work just really really grateful a lot of cuts that are giving me a lot of heartburn as i'm sure they are the staff um that i look forward to discussing further i want just a random idea did you did you think at all about like a pot of money like 20 000 for all the committees that are getting cut that would be like a smaller amount but that i just i hate to like miss out on if there's opportunities where like you've got to put a little bit in to access some kind of grant or something that you know 10 000 like something that could be like just a fund that was a committee fund that everyone is getting zeroed out i don't know if we've ever tried anything like that i couldn't already see the logistical challenges with how you figure out who could access it but just you know cage match cage match you know but if you got a grant on the line being able to access 500 let you get it or something anyway just an idea to ponder answered that question we did not think about that i mean we were um you know it was all we it was pretty challenging and then when we got i think to the end and we told you then we got our insurance information that we had to find another hundred thousand dollars uh and that you know that's when the park's thing went from above the line to below the line and uh or from below to above the line that's right um but yeah so uh yeah it was really i mean there's a lot of bad ideas in this budget it's only for one year but you know it is only for one year but then you know the cost of building it all back i mean how much is what's going to be the appetite for you know that next year so it's uh you know it's probably going to be a four to five year period to try to build back i mean realistically you know unless you know unless people next year i you know haven't really seen a council sit around saying you know how let's just raise the budget 15 percent this year to do everything we want to do and i i get that because people can't afford it so it's not that to be glib about it so i think it's going to be next year we're going to be well what's inflation you know can we do that and how much can we do within that now you know good news is you know except maybe some revenues will come back maybe we'll have some development maybe you know but those are maybe we don't know i just remember the pandemic actually hit three budgets and public doesn't want to remember that and so i think definitely the flood is going to hit more than this budget and in in these workshops i guess every time we have a meeting we're going to decide whether or not to have these extra workshops or not like in january third so i mean i think i think it's just you know there's no sense meeting you know if by chance you all decide on the budget next week and oh you did last year you were done before christmas last year so and then we went straight to public here i understand but i'm just saying that so there's no sense holding a meeting if you don't need it so i'm assuming but they're also on the calendar if you need them and want them and we can always add more it's it's your time i think one of the things to consider whether it's for you know you want to talk about tonight or but is how you want to do that i mean our you know years past we've had presentations from department heads we were planning to do those by video this year but if you want time to meet with people or at least some of them that'd be good to know so people can prep in advance the other thing so you should know is at the next meeting while it is all budget we're going to eveline's going to present the results of this budget serving closings today so we'll have that will be start-up so we'll hear what we've had pretty good response to that right i think pretty high response so you'll at least get to see what the resident said to the questions we asked well i guess along those lines one of the workshops i would really like to see us do during this budget hearing meeting process is paving i want people to have an opportunity here from dpw and learn about the paving inventory how the roads are graded why we repair this one not that one i get so many emails about paving and i also think they need we need to really help the public understand the capital improvement plan not just the what we're in debt for but what's all behind that and the planning because i don't think people realize how far out you plan your capital improvement plan so i really like to see some workshop time set aside for those two elements to be presented very good for you all right right i think we can close out this item and move on to other business which i don't think we have any unless someone wants to tell me otherwise then we move to city council reports start down your end on it a couple random thoughts i think just for going through this process because tonight we have board of civil authority and soon we'll have tax abatements i don't know john if maybe we can have some kind of tutorial for the members of the board of civil authority in advance of our first hearing it's just i don't really understand how tax abatements work and i think the temptation knowing pretty much everybody involved is that they're i'd rather not have personal judgments but rather know what the rules general are for the tax abatement process or maybe that's something we should talk about at the point right tomorrow yeah i think that's a great idea yeah definitely it's a moving target too so it's good to talk about it now the only other thing it doesn't really affect this budget because we're not going for more bonding but i just um just been wondering how hard debt policy works so maybe at some point we could you know we said a maximum amount of debt versus a total grand list or is it a percentage of our annual budget or i just have no idea so i'd love an update on that i don't know yeah just quickly um the commission for recovery and resilience for Montpelier continues to meet on saturday at two o'clock outside skinny pancake we're doing a little celebration for the youth conservation corps kids who did so much work to help um muck out after the floods and also celebrating our great parks department and managing that and doing lots of that work too um so hope people can swing by and some of the commissioners will be there so people just want to chat and hear more about what's going on please come by uh two o'clock saturday it's also the cocoa crawl so you can get some chocolate around town um which should be fun uh two o'clock saturday outside skinny pancake um so that should be a nice little celebration um and we are planning a bigger public forum in february so more details coming soon to share more details about what's going on and finally getting to the point where there's a good more opportunity for public engagement and more people to get involved now that some of the just basic structures are in place so excited for that great thank you um i uh i feel like i've been talking a lot tonight so i can spare you a mayor's report city clerks report yeah just a couple things one of them actually requires some immediate action that sounds so scary doesn't it real quickly there is the board of civil authority meeting tomorrow night it shouldn't be a long meeting but it is a is a big one we'll probably be making a final decision on national life so it's it's important um as you all already know i don't have to remind you i do it every time anyway um but the other thing is we have a petition in for a charter change uh to to show up on the next uh town meeting day ballot petitions by charter change are a little weird the the deadlines and things are a little wonky and they don't line up that well but it obliges you all as the council to set two public hearings that can only be i think it's a maximum of 10 days apart from each other and they have to be warned more than 30 days in advance they both have to be warned at the same time um they have to be warned twice it's rather rather strange but to make it all work really i guess what i'm going to ask you all to do is on to put one of these public hearings on a pre-existing council meeting makes the most sense and the timing is right if we could have an agenda item for one of these public hearings on the meeting of the 24th of january to get the second meeting in we couldn't wait as long as the next council meeting so i'm proposing it be at the beginning of the board of abatement meeting so the board of abatement meeting was going to start at 6 30 then maybe that second hearing could be scheduled for six o'clock that same night so that would mean setting one meeting for 6 30 the council meeting to january 24th and the second one for six o'clock on february 1st that following thursday um sort of playing with the numbers i wasn't really seeing any other way to make it work but if that's something you all could would need to call tonight so does that have to be by february uh first the ballot would already be set right well the ballot would be set but it's it's just a hearing for something here though so that hearing doesn't affect what goes on the ballot no no they've already qualified for the ballot so the purpose of some people getting information about what it is they'll be voting on okay what's the topic oh the topic let me just ask uh it's the um fair eviction i forget what they're calling a just eviction just cause eviction thank you i have it in front of me and i can't tell you what i'm looking at um yeah this is something i'd guess a few other towns i know when uski passed it and it would it would enable the city council to pass um some ordinance protections for tenants that would largely change how leases work i guess without time to qualify it any further but i've got a copy of it i can send it to you okay so i'm carrying a lot of work that lands up carries first um i'm just worried that uh half an hour for one of those public hearings won't be enough time i think there could be a lot of people who want to come out and talk about this um assuming it's that's not assuming it's that people are interpreting the hearing as a an opportunity to give their opinion rather than get information about it which i think they probably will i think people will want to come and give their opinion so that's my only qualm that well we could just say the first one is really long and the second one is half an hour and that's what we've got well the first one would presumably be an agenda item on the right so it would be as long as it is i guess and the board of abatement we can just as we get closer we can decide to start the board of abatement meeting that night later we can just call it for seven o'clock or call it for when the public hearing ends donna it can't be part of the city council it has to have its own time ahead of city council no no i mean it would be like any other of these public hearings we have it could be an agenda item on the city council it can't be part of the board of so it couldn't be it couldn't be part of the board of well on the 24th you were saying city council yeah so they could be like agenda number five or something okay just so people are aware i mean jack because this doesn't really affect me that much but i mean i'm not it's really john's thing but the 24th is our last night so that so we'll be doing public hearings on the budget the warning and that's when you make your final decisions about what goes on the ballot presumably any petitions we do actually you may remember we used to have Thursday night meetings we don't know i talked about that if there are petitioned items you do have a board of abatement meeting the next night so we could call a quick council meeting to accept any petitions if we had to add petitions to if they didn't come in but usually they're in by advance they really you know i was to come in at the last minute these are not this one some other you know ballot petition or whatever so so it will be a substantive night that night and actually get more more agenda items to talk about too when it gets to be my turn and it you know we want to try to keep those Thursdays open for board of abatement meetings so you're saying so this second meeting is essentially going to be a special meeting of the council at which the only item might be the public hearing on the charter proposal so we need to have a motion to set these two meetings set these two public hearings someone want to make that motion kary makes that motion and we we have the dates and Donna did you second it or is there a second okay any further discussion then all those in favor signify by saying aye any opposed okay thank you all are you done oh yeah i'm done so done all right city managers report so while we're setting agenda items and meetings the planning director asked me to bring up scheduling some items but he's still here so i'm going to let him explain what it was rather than my scribble notes to try to interpret uh thanks mike mike miller you want to make sure i did it so i didn't uh i didn't have my list because i thought bill was going to have it but two zoning hearings two zoning hearings and one intro meeting oh yep one intro so the planning commission uh on monday night had a public hearing for some zoning amendments they have forwarded that to you for consideration i need to warn those in the newspapers uh 15 days in advance so i need to kind of figure out what days and your calendar in january we always try to get them done before any elections so if we've got them kind of in this window the last thing we want to do is to have them in february and then vote on them in march because some of you might not be here new people are going to come in and say we don't know what's going on we're not going to vote for the changes so it's good to you have to have two hearings we usually have an introductory hearing just to kind of um lay everything out so we're usually looking at three meetings to kind of talk about these zoning amendments um but i don't want to interfere with your budgets so uh it really comes down to what you guys are comfortable with for setting up a schedule to kind of have those so i was thinking the 24th for the hearings would be the 24th and the 14th um february 14th alternatively so that way the 28th is available in case you need to go one more meeting you have one more meeting before town meeting so the the counter to that is you might get i went around around about this today is that you know you're still finishing your budget too so you're doing these two things at once you know we had we had i had on my calendar doing the two public hearings in february the 14th and 28th so that the budget was done and you did the zoning hearings after that but um but mike's right if you're not ready to approve it by the 28th then it moves into march um the other issue is just doing the introductory meeting to get a sense of what it is mike maybe you can you know maybe you could give a quick real short summary of what it is because i don't think this is you know i don't know how detailed these things are that for what's the the there's gonna be a couple of policy issues this isn't a really big one sometimes we've had ones that anyone who's been on the council we've had ones that are we're gonna have you know a lot of change and there are a lot of changes if you look at the strikeout copy but the number of policy changes are much smaller than what a lot of times or a lot of the contentious recommendations so it's really down to a couple of changes regarding density you know a suggestion that we remove density requirements within the design review district there are going to be some policy decisions on whether we expand our currently if you have a conforming lot you can have a duplex there's a recommendation in this one to bring that to four units um and that's just to allow increase the ability of people to better to use their buildings in some cases it's more economical to put in four studios than is to put in two two bedrooms and that's just makes gives the flexibility to the property owner to decide and sometimes density that density requirement means you have to do two apartments as opposed to four studios so that's a little bit of the recommendations that those were two of the big ones there are a lot of changes that are in there that I will go through each one some of them are required under the new home act there's a change of state law that's going to affect some things we don't really get a vote on it most of it's like this changes to meet state law so there are a handful of these policy decisions that will go through so I don't think obviously we'll need to hear from the public we'll need to have questions so we certainly could I would think we could get through in two meetings in February because I think either people are going to support them or not support them or make changes to it if you're not familiar with it once zoning gets handed to you it is your document to amend so if there are things you're like I don't like that it's not a matter of voting yes or no you can say I'm going to I would suggest we change this from x to y or we don't make this change so really becomes your document including you know everything and including taking things that weren't recommended and saying you know I know there wasn't a recommendation on this provision this one's always bothered me I think we should bring that one back and have a discussion on it so there are all sorts of things we could talk about but the hope would be that we would have an introductory meeting or maybe this is the introductory meeting they will all be online we'll get them all online but the big thing for me is I've got a warrant in the newspaper and I got to make sure I don't interfere with your schedules because obviously there's going to be a lot of public comment and we don't need one group of people coming in for a zoning public comments and a second group of people of people coming in at the same time to have discussions on the budget yeah this this is this feeling like an easy budget year I think we could be spending a bunch of work a bunch of time working on it right up to the end the density thing is is is probably reworking that thing that came to us a year or two ago that people thought wasn't necessarily ready for prime time and there was a split on the planning commission so so that's been reworked that's good so I'm I'm thinking the 14th and 28th of February I don't know what other people think are you doing one as early as the 10th yeah okay no well I'm just amazed that this is coming at us at this point where we just budget intro tonight we're doing full border civil authority with 69 tax appeals plus 20 plus tax abatements I mean guys you're working hard and I just think bringing this in right now is piling on I'd rather move it out a bit and leave time to discuss it yeah I think that's so the reason is that the planning commission's been working on this for a while and they just wrapped it up so they could have in theory gone into February so they finished their process so now it comes to us so the question is when do we want to schedule this and I'm with you I don't know that we should do a during budget so I think if but if we don't then the option is you wait until after election and it you know it might be the same seven of you it might not you know I don't know who's running who isn't who's you know so then it's a different thing so it's really that's the question so if you want to get it in for you seven then really February is the option uh if you don't want to conflict with budgets I think so that's where we're at it's you know it's your choice when you take it out so and you can do it whenever you want right I mean they don't have to they can wait till March yeah February 14th and February 28th a second yeah for a second anyone else have everybody okay with that all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed all right so we had talked briefly about the fee schedule exemption I think I'm going to put the hazard mitigation plan on as a consent item coming up so okay but we'll also be making a suggestion for a fee schedule change for building permits and that that will deal with the energy efficiency currently there's an exemption for energy efficiency projects it's kind of strange there's a lot of things that do pay fees but fees don't um and we see it's it's somewhat problematic to to use I can go into details of it it's not as simple and straightforward as simply solar panels also affect how people pay fees on weatherizing they're doing windows and stuff and so we're we're losing out on a lot of fees we would probably be collecting and we don't think it actually we don't think there's anybody not doing energy efficiency work because they won't be able to afford their fees so we think it's in light of the fact that we're trying to come up with money um making sure that everybody pays their fees affordable housing projects pay their fees a lot of projects pay their fees but solar panels don't pay fees and energy efficiency work so we're going to at least come in have a conversation with you to see about removing that fee exemption and just having all projects pay fees is that going to be part of this package you're coming in with it'll be it'll be a separate item it'll be set because it's not really part of the zoning the fee schedule is separate but we can have it in that same night so yes a second item that we'll be bringing forward to you great thanks Mike thank you Mike explain that way better the only other thing I have this is just hopefully a tiny little bit of good news we'll see um we are those of you aren't aware we had a major effort last week with our staff to kind of clear stuff out of the city council chamber and out of the memorial room in part because I think we're going to move the justice center into the memorial room but we are I've asked our ADA officials our folks to look at whether we could move our meetings back to the council chamber as long as we have the hybrid option if that qualifies under ADA is a reasonable accommodation because we still have the elevator out and actually our ADA committee is meeting next Tuesday so we have an ADA committee we might as well ask them their opinion have them weigh in on that so next week we will be at the senior center that's already booked but possibly starting January we'll be back on our home field which would be nice I think just it's easier for everybody but you know I think we have to we also have to be sensitive to those that do have accessibility issues and make sure we're doing that but I do think this format allows for that but we want to make sure that people that know more about this than me are making that decision so that's hopefully the new year will bring us back to meeting at City Hall that would be great I was in City Hall meeting with Bill the other day and if you haven't been in City Hall in a while um council chamber is not full of stuff piled up on top of each other furniture and files and boxes and everything it's it's not backed away it was but it's not as bad as it was before so it's encouraging that it's just one little sign of progress and you're done I'm done all right we can adjourn then at 10 o 3 p.m thank you all